Ashanti: new singer reigns as music's princess of hip-hop soul

Jet, July 1, 2002

Ashanti has music's record books with her debut, self-titled album, and has already lied the princess of hip hop/ soul music.

Her full name is Ashanti Douglas and her ballad Foolish has garnered airplay on radio from coast to coast. In fact, the 21-year-old New Yorker is only the second act in music history to have her first three songs chart on the Top 10 of Billboard Magazine's Hot 100. The only other act to have accomplished that near-impossible feat was the Beatles.

Besides Foolish, she's featured on Always on Time with Ja Rule and What's Luv? with Fat Joe.

"I never dreamed it would be like this," she said during a recent JET interview. "I was amazed! I dreamed that one day maybe I could get a song, anything on Billboard. This has been incredible. Everybody was shocked. Everybody wished me well on the album. I felt very comfortable with it, being out there with Ja Rule and Fat. I felt confident that we did a good job. I didn't think it was going to be the worst album in the world, but I never thought it was going to be so positively received and powerful."

Because those three songs soared up the charts so quickly, demand for the album was so heavy that it had to be released ahead of time. Ashanti penned all 12 of the ballads, R&B and hop/hop tunes featured on the album. She's been writing music since she first got signed on a record label at the ripe old age of 14.

Like many singers, the Glen Cove, NY, native sang in her church choir. She hummed and sang along with her idol Mary J. Blige on the radio but didn't really see herself in a recording studio. It was all a lucky accident, she recalled.

"It was an accident. I was downstairs doing my chores like vacuuming the living room. My mom said, `You can't listen to the radio or watch TV while doing chores.' I was like, `Alright, whatever.' Then my mom comes flying down the steps and she says, `Shan, I thought I told you no radio.' I was like `Mom, that wasn't the radio, that was me singing.' I was 12 then. She went and got my dad (as well as my then-13-year old sister) and they listened and said, `She might have something.'"

Her path included doing local talent shows on Long Island and using connections that led to other connections. That led to a contract at 14 with Jive Records. "I went to Jive and sang a cappella. We didn't have any money for a demo. I just sang and danced and I was signed at 14."

Getting a record label at 14 didn't seem strange to her because at the same time, Brandy, Aaliyah and Monica, all young singers themselves, were making musical names for themselves.

But things didn't go well between her and Jive. She said they wanted things in the pop direction and she was all soul and hip-hop.

While still pursuing musical success, she still maintained a normal adolescence. "I did a lot of things like track, chorus, cheerleading and a lot of clubs."

At 17, another record deal took her to Atlanta where she busied herself writing. "I was living on my own in Atlanta, paying my own rent, car note and grocery bills, everything at 17. It was almost like I'd gone away to college," she recalled with a laugh. But the laughter stopped when she talked about the album never getting completed because of confusion at the record company.

Eventually she moved back to New York and one connection led to another and she ended up getting the attention of Murder Inc., a label known primarily for its rap artists like Ja Rule. But it all clicked, she said.

And it's been a whirlwind of photo shoots, video-making and media interviews since. Ashanti wants to quickly put to rest the rumor that she and Ja Rule are involved intimately.

"We are not together," she said emphatically. "Ja is like my family. We work together and have a cool relationship. I'm really cool with his wife. It's like a big family at Murder Inc. Everyone supports each other."

The other rumor that she wants to put to rest is that she is Hispanic. "I think that came from the Foolish video," she said. "In the beginning where they're saying `I got a Spanish broad.' We took the whole concept from the movie Goodfellas and they talk about Jews and Italians. I didn't know there was going to be such a mix-up. I'm Black! Some fans came up to me at a signing and asked if I was Puerto Rican or Dominican. I just said, `I'm Black.'"

She said the name Ashanti originates in the African country of Ghana. "It is a tribe and what's cool about it is that in a lot of countries women are low on the totem pole. But in the Ashanti tribe women are respected."

Because her debut album has done phenomenally well, Ashanti knows there will be tremendous expectations and pressures on her follow-up efforts. And she's already formulating songs in her mind. "There were a lot of things that we didn't tap into as far as my talent on this album. So, there's a whole lot more to show people."

Since she has written so much of her own material, Ashanti also gets writing royalties. She is not worried about being ripped off because she is cautious and her family is very involved in her career.