His signature style combines baritone vocals, garnering comparisons to David Bowie and Johnny Cash, with instrumentation that ranges from lyric-driven acoustic folk, to alternative rock, to post-punk and electronic music, as well as a penchant for the theatrical.

His first album, Risen featured the band's first hit single, a cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence" which brought national media attention along with club and radio rotation.

[3] Following the success of Risen, Nyte began to write The Awakening's second album entitled Request which embraced the electronic and industrial sounds of 1980s new romantic movement.

These influences were openly acknowledged by Nyte, who describes his musical tastes as "very broad" and names among his personal heroes the likes of David Bowie and Kate Bush and Elvis Presley.

In November 1998 Nyte launched his own record label and began to produce and promote other South African artists in addition to handling all management and distribution of The Awakening.

An alternative cover was proposed and copies sold in the US feature an image of Nyte as the Glam Vamp, the artist's androgynous, sometimes cross-dressed alter-ego portrayed in the same-titled video, as a result.

In December 2001, The Awakening released a follow-up to Zeen – an EP called The Fountain which featured songs closely linked in style and atmosphere.

[14] In May 2002, Nyte was the male lead in the play "My Bloody Valentine" which premiered at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa.

According to Nyte, Roadside Heretics marked a new era for The Awakening, as the band focused on capturing their trademark live performance intensity within the album's sound.

Described as "organic electronic / experimental"[17] music, the album received critical acclaim for the hybrid of pre-1980s electro and the "icy echoes of isolation...and just a hint of swing."

[8] Later that year Nyte founded The Red Room, which went on to become one of South Africa's most established and longest-running alternative music dance clubs.

Ashton Nyte and The Accused performed at The Woodstock Festival (South Africa) before embarking on a national tour in December 2005.

The Valley was released in the United States in June 2010 accompanied by a multi-date tour and over 40 Triple-A format radio stations giving it airplay.

Nyte was invited to the internationally acclaimed radio show Border Crossings, where he performed select songs from The Valley live on air to more than 125 million listeners.

The video for the first single "Dressing Like You" was championed by the New York-based alternative arts and culture publication Auxiliary Magazine who described it in their press release as "a haunting, melodic, some-what fragile ode to love, loss, and the quest for silence in a digital world.

[32] In 2016, Nyte and The Awakening joined The Mission UK on their 17 date tour of the album Another Fall from Grace, which spanned 17 European countries.

[33] 2019 saw Ashton working on the score of the movie Don't Let Go with composer Ethan Gold, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2019.

Nyte also contributed to the second and third Beauty Chaos releases and completed a 36-date European Tour with British indie artist Wayne Hussey in September / October 2019.

Writing for American Songwriter, Tina Benitez-Eves described the work as "Flawlessly poetic in its lyricism, Nyte opens a chapter of his life that is intimate, reflective, and enlightening, traversing childhood inspirations, a spiritual and mystical connection to nature, and how everything somehow comes full circle.

The album was a marked departure for The Awakening, with a stronger electronic presence, especially evident in the lead singles, "Zero Down" and "A Victory Of Love," which both featured music videos created by Nyte.

The series featured artists supporting the cause and included The Awakening, The Parlotones, Not My Dog, Fuzigish, Jo Day, Tweak, Cutting Jade, and many more.

In more recent times, Nyte has toured several US universities to deliver a lecture series on tolerance and his experiences as a young artist growing up during Apartheid-era South Africa.