Ashley Walters really wishes people would stop asking him about jail. It was almost a quarter of a century ago that the Peckham-born rapper and actor was arrested by armed police for waving a firearm at a traffic warden. Half a lifetime ago.
Back when So Solid Crew had No 1 singles and home secretaries gave speeches about the dangers of gangster rap. “It’s a distant memory,” he says of the nine months he spent in a young offenders’ institute. “I didn’t want to be there. Obviously. But it was a moment in time. It happened.”
