PARTICIPANTS
Get to know all the music creators and industry pros participating in this year's ASCAP Experience.
AMY WADGE
Amy Wadge is one of the UK’s most prolific contemporary songwriters.
She has accumulated numerous cuts and has co-written both for and with established and emerging artists alike, amongst them: Camila Cabello, Alicia Keys, Kacey Musgraves, John Legend, Joshua Bassett, Noah Cyrus, Diana Ross, Tom Grennan, Anthony Ramos, Kylie Minogue, Lady A, Keith Urban, James Blunt, Mae Muller, Christina Perri, Mahalia, Griff and Shakira.
Amy’s most notable success to date comes from her long-established writing partnership with Ed Sheeran. "Thinking Out Loud" was the third single from Ed’s second album, the triple Grammy nominated X (Multiply). "Thinking Out Loud" went to #1 on the UK charts in November 2014. In June 2015, it became the first track ever in the history of the UK charts to remain in the top 40 for a whole year. In February 2016, the track won two Grammys, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance. To date, Amy has 12 Grammy nominations.
Amy’s artist profile has been elevated in recent years as the songwriter and performer behind the BBC Drama series Keeping Faith. The songs from this series have left an emotional connection with their audience.
AMBER LIU
A California native, Amber Liu was discovered at the age of 15 at SM Entertainment’s global auditions in Los Angeles. Following a move to South Korea, she debuted in 2009 as a member of the female group f(x). The record-breaking electro-pop-based K-pop group quickly became one of the industry’s most popular and award-winning. In 2015, Amber’s first solo release, the critically acclaimed album Beautiful, debuted at #2 on Billboard’s World Albums chart, with the title track’s music video, released the same day, garnering more than 1 million YouTube views in its first day of release.
Over the past two years, Amber has been an advocate for body positivity and mental health when her “Where’s My Chest” message video went viral. She’s also an accomplished producer and co-wrote the hit digital show on FICTO hosting “I’ll Ask the Stupid Questions” while directing some of her hit music videos. She has also made a career on television and film, hosting travel and variety shows globally and has since released an array of critically acclaimed solo projects with her most personal to date, her EP titled Z!.
ASHANTI
Ashanti is a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, actor and author. Ashanti burst onto the music scene with her smash hit, self-titled debut album Ashanti. It landed the #1 spot on both the Billboard Top 200 and R&B album charts, selling a whopping 504,593 units in its first week and set a SoundScan record as the most albums sold by any debut female artist in the chart’s history, granting her a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, which she still holds today. Ashanti has released six studio albums and received eight Billboard Awards, a Grammy, two American Music Awards, two Soul Train Awards, six ASCAP Awards and many more awards and illustrious honors. Ashanti has continued to reign at the top as one of Billboard’s “Top Females of the Decade from 2000-2010” and continues to break Billboard records as having a Hot 100 entry in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.
In 2005, Ashanti made her telefilm debut starring as Dorothy in The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz, opposite Miss Piggy and Kermit. She also starred in the Disney animated series The Proud Family and continued to receive roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Army Wives, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and portrayed Dionne Warwick on NBC’s American Dreams. She has also played herself and performed on the hit TV series Vegas.
In her feature film debut in Coach Carter, she co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson, and it was a #1 box office hit. Ashanti’s other film credits include Resident Evil Extinction, John Tucker Must Die and Bollywood film Bride & Prejudice. Ashanti executive produced, starred in the musical drama and feature film STUCK, released April 2019. She also executive produced the feature film Mothers and Daughters, starring Sharon Stone, Susan Sarandon, Mira Sorvino and more.
Ashanti recently starred in Honey Girls, in partnership with Build-A-Bear Entertainment and Sony Pictures and will soon begin filming The Plus One in March 2022, that she will star in and executive produce.
Ashanti has built her brand with several major partnerships and has her own fragrance, "Precious Jewel" with AMC Beauty. Her endorsements include Herbal Essences, where she is the first African American to land a national campaign, and Candies Apparel. She launched her clothing line in collaboration with Miss Circle and partnered with Pretty Little Thing to create her own swimsuit line “Ashanti.”
She has written her first book of poetry through Hyperion titled Foolish/Unfoolish: Reflections on Love and will release a book with HarperCollins in 2022.
Ashanti is the Ambassador for the Jumpstart Reading Program and became the “Youth of the Year” Ambassador for the Boys and Girls Club of America in 2009 and was also inducted into their Hall of Fame. She became a member of their "BE GREAT" Campaign with Denzel Washington, was also a part of the “Let’s Move” campaign with Michelle Obama.
To celebrate her contributions to music and recording, Ashanti received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 7, 2022.
CAMILO
CARTER BURWELL
CARTER BURWELL has composed the music for a number of feature films, including Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, Gods and Monsters, Being John Malkovich, Before Night Falls, Adaptation, In Bruges, Twilight, True Grit, Anomalisa, Carol, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Tragedy of Macbeth.
He also composed the music for the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show. His writing includes the essay "Music at Six: Scoring the News Then and Now," published in the inaugural issue of Esopus magazine in 2003 and reprinted in Harper's Magazine, the essay “No Country for Old Music” in the 2013 Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics, and “How Nino Rota Saved Me From a Subterranean Freakout” in Arcana IX.