S O U N D S

Irv Gotti helps Ashanti prepare for the "Baby" video shoot

A Year 
in the Life

by Cynthia Fuchs

Not bad for someone who sings off key.
— Iann Robinson, MTV2 News

After 30 years in the business, I should be told by a 15-year-old white kid who should get an award on my show?
— Don Cornelius, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 21, 2002

Dreams are real,
All you have to do is believe.
— Ashanti, "Dreams"

What a year it’s been for Ashanti. How thrilling, brilliant, stressful and confusing.

Only this summer everything was going so well, better than any 21-year-old dancer/singer might have had the nerve to wish for. Her self-titled debut album, for which she wrote all 12 tracks, went platinum, selling nearly 1.5 million copies; she had three hit singles; she was performing her signature duet with Ja Rule, "Always on Time," every place on earth.

Sure, there were carpers, like proud metalhead Iann Robinson, noting the limits of her pretty voice. But aside from such details, really, life must have looked sweet.

Then came the backlash. As soon as it was announced that Ashanti would win the 2002 Soul Train Lady Of Soul Aretha Franklin Entertainer of the Year Award, folks were restless, mumbling that perhaps there were more "deserving," more accomplished, more "diva-esque," or just plain more experienced performers out there (previous winners include Mariah Carey, TLC and Jill Scott).

California high school sophomore Rommel Zamora decided to do something about it. On July 31, he set up an online petition called "Better Candidate For Aretha Franklin Award," and by the time the Award was actually awarded Aug. 26, some 28,000 people had signed.

Addressed simply to "Soul Train," the petition, which is still featured on Zamora’s Web site, reads, in part: "It is an insult to other entertainers who are more deserving of this award and Aretha Franklin. Ashanti simply lacks singing ability and stage presence. She doesn’t demonstrate the qualities of an entertainer and hasn’t been out in the public for a full year. Better candidates for this award should be Faith Evans, Alicia Keys, India.Arie or Aaliyah. Please sign this and you will help our current, hardworking artists by protesting against ordinary, mediocre artist from getting a highly praised award."

The dissent hit a nerve (see Soul Train’s rebuttal). Perhaps, needless to say, the Soul Train folks didn’t take kindly to this questioning of their decision. Don Cornelius Productions, the parent company of Soul Train and the Soul Train Awards, took it rather personally (as his comment above to the Los Angeles Times suggest), making it a matter of property, not surprisingly related to gender, race and age.

Oddly, Soultrain.com’s first startling strategy was to indict BET.com as "white-owned," among other things, along with young Zamora (who is of Filipino descent, despite Cornelius’s presumption that he is white) for "fostering a vicious and wrong-headed hate campaign against the super-popular, black, female, Murder, Inc./Def Jam recording artist Ashanti."

Flabbergasted by the virulence of the objection to his protest, Zamora went on to post the response he received from the Soultrain.com Web master: "As for the, grossly, uninformed moron who came up with the, totally crude and clumsy, idea to initiate his own hate campaign and Internet rock-throwing attack against a perfectly honest, time tested and time honored process, which he very obviously has no knowledge or understanding of, whatsoever, we urge you to cease and desist from your malignant abuse and misuse of the services being provided by www.petitiononline.com and to, immediately, take steps, with the help and support of all Ashanti petition signers, to open your own Internet website, which should, appropriately, be entitled, ‘I’m a fucking loser, I’m not talented or successful, I don’t know shit about the music industry and I need to get a motherfucking life!!’"

Tactful.

Granted, Soul Train can name its own Award recipient, and it’s certainly not the first time that popularity — as it is apparently indicated by profits — has been a criterion for giving out prizes (see, for instance, the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys, the MTV Video Music Awards, the Golden Globes, etc.). 

The "rock-throwing" was only exacerbated once the Soultrain.com Web master got into this fray. Moreover, framing the issue in terms of racism seemed a knee-jerk response, and it only made the situation more difficult for the honoree. By the time the Awards took place, wagons were circled, many in the name of protecting Ashanti. Her acceptance speech was demure and brief.

This is a standard position for her at this point in her career. She reports that the Murder, Inc. guys tend to treat her as a "little sister," but if it affects romantic possibilities, she’s not complaining. She’s busy working. And in large part, her work — so broadly crossed-over — challenges racist presumptions and divisions between communities, in commercial as well as political terms, as these are now closely and inexorably linked.

*  *  *  *  *

Ashanti’s speedily rising star certainly did much to jumpstart an unsteady hip-hop/R&B industry (read: "black" music, however you understand that term), following a series of blows: the deaths of Aaliyah and Lisa Lopes; the aching economy following 9/11; Whitney and Mariah; R. Kelly and MJ; even, to an extent, the resurgence of "rock" in the form of pretty young white boys and girls who write their own material and, you know, play instruments.

That’s not to say that hip-hop or R&B was going anywhere. But while acts like B2K and Bow Wow, Eminem and P. Diddy, have certainly held their own amid the tumult, the most unexpected recent development may have been Ashanti S. Douglas, whose pleasant, thin vocals and uncomplicated dance moves made her seem — at least until the Soul Train mess — like a soothing balm for anxious consumer souls.

If nothing else, the girl’s numbers are impressive. In a few months, she accumulated credits for co-writing remixes of J. Lo’s "Ain’t It Funny" and "I’m Real," as well as writing and performing the hooks for Big Pun’s "How We Roll," Fat Joe’s "What’s Luv?" and "Always On Time" (the irresistible "I’m not always there when you call, but I’m always on time").

These last two gigs, along with her own first single, "Foolish," off her album Ashanti, made her the only artist since the Beatles to have three Billboard top 10 singles at the same time, and certainly the first black female artist to come anywhere near such a mainstream "measure of success." 

Ashanti sold some 502,000 copies in its first week of release, cementing her place in industry history by surpassing first week sales by Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera and Lopez (and knocking Celine Dion off the chart top, which can only be a good thing).

These are the kinds of numbers that make everyone take notice, including, obviously, the folks at Soul Train. Ashanti took it more or less in stride, traveling hither and thither to promote her album, performing "Always on Time" a bijillion times, sometimes in a headband, always placing her hand to her face in the universal "call me" gesture, gently swaying her hips and sashaying across the stage — on MTV and BET, for Urban Aid 2, even for that corniest of venues, the World Music Awards.

Call her a team player. Or, as Murder, Inc. boss Irv Gotti himself puts it: "Ashanti delivers at the highest level, and she has this personality that makes people love her. She’s got too many people feeling her, too many hit records and too much heat for her to stop. She can’t lose."

Gotti’s aversion to losing is well known (check The Source’s October 2002 cover story, regarding the possible signing of Nas to the label, and the various beefs this may boost). Still, the business (believes it) thrives on controversy and conflict, that is, designating winners and losers. So as sultry and adorable, tranquil and heartening as Ashanti may be, nay-sayers will say nay.

Even before the noise started about the Soul Train Award, folks were citing Ashanti’s shortcomings: Dotmusic’s James Poletti calls "Foolish," "straight-up soul treacle that delivers that all-important familiarity"; the Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s Craig Seymour refers to her "lazy croons"; Entertainment Weekly’s Jon Caramanica says, "Her voice is supple and pretty but rarely rises above a whisper, making it a background instrument even when it’s [her] turn to shine."

For all the complaints, it’s clear that Ashanti appeals broadly. And to all appearances, this is precisely a function of her low-key, wholly non-confrontational affect. The girl is grateful, compliant, amiable. She is, in a word, happy.

Even when pressed to comment on the vagaries of her chosen trade, Ashanti wisely tells MTV.com that she doesn’t worry too much about so-called "competition." She sees "room" in the world for all the R&B-ish new girls — Tweet, Truth Hurts, Fundisha, Sharissa, Amerie, et al. — each in her "own lane."

Ashanti’s lane begins in Glen Cove, N.Y. She started singing in a gospel choir at age 6, sang R&B in a local talent contest in 1994, and signed with Jive at 14. While in high school, she honed various skills and was a member of the English Club and the track team (Princeton offered her a track scholarship). She also took up dancing at the Bernice Johnson Cultural Arts Center and with Judith Jamison of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, among others. 

But music was her calling. She sang professionally at the Soul Caf”, China Club, Madison Square Garden, etc. Though the Jive contract and a couple of others with Epic and Noontime didn’t pan out, her deal with AJM Records led to Gotti.

Supported by her "momanager" Tina (who plays her mom in the "Foolish" video), Ashanti has recently been deemed "the princess of hip-hop and R&B," making her the honored subordinate to queen Mary J. Blige, and successor to Aaliyah (who was also so deemed). Such requisite affectation of royalty hardly seems necessary, but it fits with the Gotti gang’s mafia affectations. 

She has nothing but good to say about the boss man: "He pulls certain things out of you to make you your best," she told MTV.com in July (read "In Gotti We Trust"). "He’s like a genius when it comes to creativity, to music, concepts of videos and the business. He gets it done, by hook or by crook."

"Hook" might be the operative word with respect to Ashanti. Not only has he put her skills in that area to good use, it was also Gotti’s idea to use the melody from El DeBarge’s "Stay With Me" as the hook for "Foolish." Ashanti was understandably nervous about the citation, since most everyone on the planet knows it as the hook on Biggie’s "One More Chance," but Gotti prevailed and the song rocketed to incessant radio and video play.

The video’s visual track, with Terrence Howard playing the gangster Ashanti can’t not love ("And though my heart can’t take no more, / I keep on running back to you") allows her to look lovely in expensive outfits and put upon by a selfish paramour — so malevolent that he turns to give you, hapless viewer, the "Thriller" evil eye at video’s end. 

Labelmates Ja, Charli Baltimore, and Vita (who has since left Murder, Inc.), and Gotti, too, all appear as kibitzers, advising Ashanti or Howard, underlining the girl-boy discord that makes the story go.

Again, Ashanti has it all ways — in spite of the gangster setting and her fancy outfits (and a scene where she’s in bed with Howard), she comes off as cute, chastely sexy, unsullied. The hugeness of the song and video had as much to do with Ashanti’s "speaking for" women who put in time with bad boyfriends as it did with the fact that she actually ends up not leaving said boyfriend. 

It’s a challenge, but not too much. Boys can get the point or not. Girls can sympathize. The song made Ashanti a household name, even if she hasn’t been asked to perform it as much as the twofer "Always on Time."

In order to "give back" — or, more precisely, to acknowledge her history, the lifetime it’s taken her to arrive at her overnight success — Ashanti decided to shoot "Happy," her second solo video, in Glen Cove. Or, rather, she raised the idea with Gotti, who OK’d it and agreed to shoot it.

The song proper begins with Ja’s predictable exclamation: "It’s the world’s most talented record label, Murder Inc. / And that angelic voice you hear in the background, / Oh that’s our new princess of hip-hop and R&B, yo, Miss Ashanti."

From here, pipes float into the mellow mix and Ashanti’s voice takes center stage. It’s a basic love song, a "thank you" to a wondrous boyfriend (the opposite of the villain in "Foolish"), gliding rhythms and lyrics.

The video’s narrative concept is fiercely, even deceptively simple. Exquisite Ashanti answers the phone "at home" one morning, and when she hears Ja’s unmistakable voice, she informs him that her hometown is honoring her that very day. She invites him to gather up the crew and "come through," then proceeds to prepare herself.

She heads to the beauty shop and selects outfits offered up by her own crew of girlfriends, who also conveniently serve as backup dancers whenever the opportunity presents itself. They perform in her front yard where a platform is neatly awaiting their slinky moves, on the sidewalk in front of the beauty shop, and at the celebration itself, where a crowd greets her with signs and hurrahs.

Ashanti’s costumes (she wears several) are gauzy but never gaudy, her dance steps are adorable and not suggestive, her lyrics amiable and singularly unchallenging: "Boy you fill me with so much joy, / You give whatever it is I need. / My love here to stay won’t ever leave, / So glad that you fell in love with me."

This delightful display of affection fits with Ashanti’s accompanying lyrics, sort of. Her fans are heaven-sent, in a way. The Murder, Inc. protectors arrive just in time to stand around her, proudly looking on like she’s a great new product they’ve designed. If she’s happy, they’re happy. 

That seems to be the point, for now. Someday, this little sister will be growing up. It remains to be seen how the property and profits questions will work out.

P o p  F o r u m
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Related Sites
Visit Ashanti’s official site. Here are news articles and videos from MTV.com.