 He attended school in Brooklyn, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Voorhees, New Jersey before attending Harvard University in 1997 where he studied Afro-American studies and was awarded the Hoopes Prize for his senior thesis.After being naturalized as an American citizen, he returned to Harvard through a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and studied for a PhD in Ethnomusicology and Afro-American studies, until Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame invited him to come work at his entertainment company, Weapons of Mass Entertainment.Ashong was a founding member of the Harvard Black Alumni Society and founded the Black Men's Forum.