‘My mum’s a bit of a forest hippie type,’ explains Bee Asha, peeling a satsuma using the points of bejewelled acrylic nails in a Leith Walk café. ‘She started taking me to Glastonbury when I was three. Her and my stepdad are real festival people, and we went every year until I was 11. I loved seeing all the performers and wanted to be one of the people jumping about onstage one day.’

The Scottish-Punjabi singer, rapper and spoken-word artist has made that particular dream of jumping on stages come true several times over. First in Dunbar’s outlandish, feminist hip-hop trio The Honey Farm, with childhood friends Gracie Brill and Gael Curran, and recently as a solo artist. Her poetry and music focus on identity, social injustice, queer relationships, and love in its many different forms. After releasing her first solo EP From Girl To Men, she won Best Newcomer at the 2022 SAMA Awards and was a 2024 finalist in BBC Introducing’s Scottish Act Of The Year.

Before this month’s release of her album Goodbye, Gracious, she has been adding new music videos to her YouTube channel. ‘Gitika’ (meaning ‘small song’ in Punjabi) is an earwormy bop about the strong connections she feels with other people from marginalised communities. This sunlit video was filmed at Tyninghame Beach with a blissed-out, henna’d Asha dancing in a lehenga and bare feet. The next video is ‘Shy Guy’, a cartoonish swirl where Asha and gaming partner fake-fight, while she cartwheels and twerks above his face in a yellow rubber miniskirt. ‘Drama was my favourite subject at school but I was never supported or praised for it. I got a “No Award” actually for drama and music, really bad grades overall. We started The Honey Farm at school as a way to bring our friends together for a funny time and take the piss onstage.’

Playing their first festival, East Lothian’s Audio Soup in 2016, The Honey Farm have since bounced around UK stages with their lyrics about yoni appreciation and body autonomy, even sharing a bill once with Margaret Atwood (author of a book of the same name). ‘It was never about getting money from people,’ Asha insists. ‘I still struggle with the financial side of things. Coming from a background where not everyone was included (because of a multitude of barriers, financial being one of them), we wanted people to feel welcome, to come along no matter.’

The inclusivity theme has always been strong, with Asha co-founding Spit It Out with filmmaker Lea Luiz De Oliveira in 2020. A diverse collective of female and non-binary artists, the charity is ‘dedicated to opening conversations around consent, mental health and healing through creativity’. Spit It Out runs activist talks, yoga classes and power-tool workshops, among other things in its busy programme. ‘Every one of us has experienced trauma and discrimination in some way. We use art to process that and connect. The thing about trauma, like life in general, rather than forgetting heavy experiences completely, you learn to redefine and bring self-power to them; collective power, community power instead of giving power to the trauma and letting it define you.’

Luiz De Oliveira made a BBC documentary about Asha which aired in 2019, during which she describes being raped on a first date in 2017. Asha struggled with agoraphobia afterwards and was prescribed anti-depressants. Writing and speaking publicly about the sexual assault has helped her regain confidence and, in turn, make others stronger.   

The ‘Shy Guy’ video was made six months ago, a sex-positive jam about care and intimacy in a couple, where she lights candles for her lover but turns down penetrative sex. ‘Being assaulted hasn’t made me hate men. I’ve done live events where sex and consent have come up in conversation. Speaking openly about my experiences, but also making it clear that I love men sparks a discussion. This young guy came up to me afterwards and had questions about how to act properly with a girl, like, if she’s not into something that she’s been into before, for example. I love that willingness to listen and learn. That’s where really positive change happens.’

Asha’s fearless, honest writing and sexually frank style isn’t a hit with everyone, in particular the Sikh-Indian side of her family. ‘I’m really close to my Powa [auntie]. At the SAMA Awards I wore a really booby top which she saw. I was round at my cousin’s first birthday party not long after. All the Indians were sitting on the floor playing tabla, singing. She turns to me and asks “what were you wearing?!”, then goes back to what she was doing and won’t mention it again. I’ve tried to explain it’s about female empowerment, she’ll just say “hmm”. I know she loves me and she just lets me be.’

As a mixed-race woman, whose white Scottish mum and Indian dad split when she was one, Singh learned very early on to slide between different worlds and cultures and to assimilate. ‘My mum’s side of the family is open to constant learning, hearing it out, delving deep and sometimes arguing. My auntie on that side makes penis jewellery, and my uncle is non-binary. My dad on the other hand won’t discuss anything. He says “anyway” a lot.’ Belonging to two very different families taught her adaptability. ‘I’ve learned to allow people to be themselves in any space. I’m not going to change someone but I am willing to have a conversation if I think they are saying or doing something that’s detrimental to someone else.’

Colourism, classism, consent, catharsis: she’s pouring it all into her new Gitika project, which includes filmmaking, rap, singing and live shows. After the album comes out, what other dreams would she like to come true? ‘I still need to get on the stage at Glastonbury!’

Bee Asha: Goodbye, Gracious is released on Thursday 16 May, available on Bandcamp and her official site; Spit It Out, various venues, Edinburgh, Thursday 6–Sunday 9 June; online, Monday 10–Wednesday 12 June; various venues, Edinburgh, Thursday 13–Sunday 16 June.