BIO

Derek Askew AKA DA Westside, born December 5th 1993 in Bethlehem PA, is an up and coming music head, who focuses primarily on making a wide array of hip hop music!

Born and raised in Bethlehem PA as an only child raised by a single mother, Derek spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to entertain himself while his mom, family & friends were busy or unavailable. Since he was an only child he struggled to generate long lasting friendships since he tended to be a bit too self centered and gravitated towards doing his “own thing”

This led to him exploring a vast range of ways to keep himself occupied, as a child he resorted to, drawing, writing books, and even trying to design his own clothing, playing video games, playing card games against himself, and just down right having full blown conversations with himself that would last for hours.

Although Derek goes by ”DA Westside” he spent his first 12 yrs of life on the east side of Bethlehem. Why does he claim westside? The reason is when his mother relocated to West bethlehem in 2005 he felt inclined to learn how to coexist with others and learned to form a bond with a clique of friends that he truly loves and stays in contact with to this day. Since all of his strongest relationships are the ones formed with his friends from westside he decided to go with “DA Westside” over ”DA Eastside”

Now for what we all want to know when it comes to any artist in any creative field…why music? Like stated earlier Derek liked to do his “own thing” and preferred to spend a lot of time in solitude. While hanging out solo he would play so many records from so many genres of music. He was drawn to the fact that there were many successful people in the music space that also did their “own thing”, so he thought that it could be at best an actual career choice and at worst an incredible outlet.