Ashton Nicole Casey, better known as Ashnikko, is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer, and model. She is best known for her 2019 single "Stupid" with Yung Baby Tate which gained viral popularity on the video-sharing platform TikTok. The song currently sits at over 29 million global streams, and over 30 million views on YouTube.
Early life
Casey was born on February 19, 1996 in Oak Ridge, North Carolina, and raised in the city of Greensboro where her parents exposed her to country music and Slipknot. She recalls becoming interested in music, specifically rap music, when she listened to "Bucky Done Gun" and Arular by M.I.A on her iPod Nano at the age of 11, claiming that it "blew little brain away". As a teenager, her family moved to Estonia for her father's studies, spending a year there before relocating again to Riga, Latvia. At one point, she was the only American in the country to attend a Latvian public high school.
Career
2017–2018: ''Sass Pancakes'' and ''Unlikeable''
Casey's first song, "Krokodil", was produced by Raf Riley and published to SoundCloud in July 2016. Casey released her first EP, Sass Pancakes, under Digital Picnic Records in 2017. The EP was produced by Raf Riley and features appearances from Avelino. Her second EP, Unlikeable, was released in November 2018 and features appearances from Kodie Shane.
2019–present: ''Hi, It's Me''
Casey released her third EP, Hi It's Me in July 2019. The five-track EP features the song "Stupid" with Yung Baby Tate which gained "viral" popularity on the video-sharing platform TikTok. Since September 2019, the song has been used in over 400,000 videos on the app, and has gained over 10 million streams on Spotify alone. Miley Cyrus gained over 2.3 million likes when she lip-synced the song on a TikTok video. The song reached No. 1 on the BillboardBubbling Under Hot 100 chart, the BillboardBubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop chart and the Spotify Viral 50 chart. She embarked on a North American tour supporting American rapper Danny Brown in October 2019.
Advocacy
Casey has been vocal about a range of social justice issues, speaking out about the commercialization of feminism in an interview with Subvrt Magazine in 2019.
