Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante MBE

Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante MBE is a renowned London-born producer, composer and DJ whose 20-year career is firmly etched in the UK's Black music history. In 2022, Asante was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to Hip-Hop Dance and Music in the Queen's New Years Honours list.

Asante’s work can be seen in film, TV, and theatre. Most recently, Asante composed the score for Sony Pictures Classics’ Kneecap, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and won the Sundance NEXT Audience Award. Kneecap has since been selected as the Irish entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2025 Oscars. Asante’s innovative hip-hop score for Kneecap was awarded the prestigious British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for Best Original Music.

Asante’s experience ranges from creating music for Danny Boyle’s Matrix adaptation, Free Your Mind, to scoring and music directing live theatre, including London's West End 2024 revival of Romeo and Juliet, starring Tom Holland, to earning an Emmy nomination in 2023 for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition for the Netflix mini-series African Queens: Njinga. His recent film, television and theatre work includes compositions for the UK-based National Theatre play The Effect, written by Lucy Prebble and directed by Jamie Lloyd; Tree, a Kwame Kwei-Armah and Idris Elba creation for the Manchester International Festival; Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship, a National Geographic documentary special; the BBC documentary The Three Lives of Michael X, and a collaboration with Brian Eno over two series of Netflix’s Top Boy.

In 2001, Asante co-founded the Olivier Award-winning world-renowned hip-hop dance company Boy Blue, who are associate artists at the iconic London arts venue, the Barbican, where Asante is also a board member. He is also an Honorary Fellow and Professor of electronic music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and a Governor at The Place Theatre, where he sits on the Nominations Committee and is the co-chair of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion.

As co-artistic director of Boy Blue, Asante is credited with the direction and composition of the dance film R.E.B.E.L (2018), as well as the live dance programs REDD (2019), Blak Whyte Gray (2017), The Five & the Prophecy of Prana (2013), Touch (2011), Legacy (2011) and Pied Piper (2007).

As a music producer, Asante has created music for the films Street Dance 3D and All Stars. He has also produced and done session work for artists such as Kano, Delilah, Raleigh Ritchie, Estelle and George The Poet, whose sold-out Search Party tour Asante also music directed.

Outside the studio, Asante mentors and delivers master classes in directing, choreography and music.