A student on the rise
OXFORD, Ohio – As Ashlee Robinson peered out at the sea of a thousand faces of her friends, classmates and teachers she felt a bead of sweat trickle down her back.
Not only was this her first time performing in front of a crowd, this was weeks after she returned to school from her stint in the hospital.
Ashlee stepped on to stage, took a centering breathe and began.
Growing up outside of Toledo, Ohio wasn’t always easy for Ashlee. She comes from a town where everyone knows all the details of your personal life. Which proved to be mentally challenging for Ashlee.
“Even when I was young, I still had an issue that I was different than other kids,” Ashlee said. “Like it was too dark for a normal kid to think like that.”
Ashlee struggled with depression throughout her life, until it came to a head her sophomore year of high school. In January of that year, she had had enough and attempted suicide. After spending a week in the hospital, she returned to school where everyone had heard what happened.
“I didn’t really care at the time,” Ashlee said. “This huge thing just happened and I’m just happy to be alive.”
Weeks after coming back to school, she performed in front of her entire school and discovered what would pull her out of that dark place.
Singing.
After that experience, Ashlee created a YouTube channel where she covers music from Khalid to Coldplay. Since she started three years ago, she’s racked up more than 2,000 subscribers and has even gotten a management deal from it.
However, not all of her feedback has been positive.
Whether it’s from the comment section, people back home or even her mother, Ashlee has been told she’s not good enough or is doing it for all the wrong reasons.
“Some people just don’t want to see you succeed,” Ashlee said.
According to Ashlee, it’s always been a struggle to get her mom’s support for her music. She fears her daughter will fail or get hurt along the way and has even tried to convince Ashlee she can’t sing.
“I’ve told her there’s a huge chance this will never happen,” Ashlee said. “But, like, nothing will ever happen if you don’t go for it.”
Despite the doubt, Ashlee found support in her father. He takes her to auditions, cheers her up when her confidence wavers and defends her in the YouTube comment section of her videos.
Last year, during her freshman year at Miami University, a team of managers from Los Angeles discovered Ashlee’s YouTube channel and signed her.
It felt like her long-awaited singing career would be kickstarted from signing with managers. They introduced her to music producers, studios and all the tools needed to become a popstar.
However, it also presented a new problem: balancing life as a college student in Ohio with being an up-and-coming musician in LA.
A new load of doubt piled on Ashlee from her management team. How could they write and produce songs if she was thousands of miles away? How will she succeed in the music industry if she isn’t giving it all of her time?
On top of that, Ashlee began to slip in school. As a student in the Farmer School of Business, she is in taxing courses and has hours of homework every night. But her heart doesn’t lie in her studies.
“I’m being pulled in two different directions,” Ashlee said. “But the one path that I really want to be on, I’m not on.”
This isn’t to say that dropping out of college, packing up her bags and flying to LA hasn’t crossed Ashlee’s mind. But her parents fund her trips to LA and are also paying for her education. If she were to leave college behind, she would lose the support of her family, and that would be more challenging than her current struggles.
“I just have to trust that I’m here for some reason,” Ashlee said. “I’m not going to give up just because I’m here.”
Thankfully for her, she’s flown to LA to produce music twice since signing. This past winter break she spent a couple of weeks working on her first single, “Need Somebody”, that’s planned to drop April 20.
While working on this song, she pulled inspiration from her battles with depression. In it, she sings about leaning on other people when you need help.
“It doesn’t mean you’re weak,” Ashlee said. “It means you’re human.”
As far as her future, all Ashlee wants is to be content with her life and hopefully make other people happy too.
“I don’t want to aim too high or too specific, because I don’t know where this journey will take me,” Ashlee said. “But maybe the Grammys.”