Deep Album Cuts Vol. 217: Ashanti
Since their Verzuz showdown is coming up (January 21st is the third and "final" date they've set), I did a Keyshia Cole deep cuts playlist last week and here's the counterpart for Ashanti. But as I said the other day, I'll admit I'm rooting for Keyshia. Ashanti was a bigger star in her prime, but her commercial decline came much sooner and much more rapidly -- practically everything she released in the first 3 years of her career was a major hit, and barely anything since then made nearly as big an impact. Half of her ten top 10 hits were with Ja Rule, and when his career sank it felt like Ashanti's career never recovered from not having him continue to prop up the Murder Inc. brand.
1. Over
2. VooDoo
3. Rescue
4. Thank You
5. Sweet Baby featuring Ja Rule
6. Feel So Good
7. Carry On
8. Then Ya Gone featuring Chink Santana
9. Christmas Time Again
10. Still Down featuring T.I.
11. Take Me Tonight featuring Lloyd
12. Focus
13. Turn It Up featuring Ja Rule
14. Show You
15. Things You Make Me Do featuring Robin Thicke
16. Mother
17. First Real Love / Outro featuring Beenie Man
18. Love Games featuring Jeremih
Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Ashanti (2002)
Tracks 5, 6, 7 and 8 from Chapter II (2003)
Track 9 from Ashanti's Christmas (2003)Tracks 5, 6, 7 and 8 from Chapter II (2003)
Tracks 10, 11, 12 and 13 from Concrete Rose (2004)
Track 14 from Collectables By Ashanti (2005)
Tracks 15 and 16 from The Declaration (2008)
Tracks 17 and 18 from Braveheart (2014)
Tracks 15 and 16 from The Declaration (2008)
Tracks 17 and 18 from Braveheart (2014)
Ashanti was really a massive star at her peak, even if I don't think her debut was her best work, it went triple platinum and she was basically at the top of the R&B game for a minute there. They even had her release a Christmas album, which has apparently held onto a following: after this past Christmas, two tracks from Ashanti's Christmas, including "Christmas Time Again," were in her top 10 on Spotify. Kelefa Sanneh is an excellent writer who has gotten a lot of understandable grief for his Dangerously In Love review headline "The Solo Beyonce: She's No Ashanti," but it's just an illustration of how big Ashanti was before Bey went solo.
As quickly as Ashanti's stock dropped, I think it's bounced back a bit in recent years with the wave of nostalgia for the early 2000s (she's also like Keri Hilson in that she's become more of a social media sex symbol in recent years than she was back in her prime as a recording artist). A lot of people have also started to retcon Ashanti as being the neglected genius behind Jennifer Lopez's entire career, which has kind of grown way beyond reality. Fun fact: the only J.Lo track that Ashanti co-wrote and sang backup on was "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)," which was of course a version of a song Lopez had already written that the Murder Inc. team was commissioned to remix.
I still can't stand all the windchimes and hissing ambient sounds Irv Gotti and 7 Aurelius poured over Ashanti's early stuff, it's just so annoying and unnecessary. I like the 7-minute "Rescue," though, it has a nice extended guitar solo by frequent DJ Quik collaborator Robert Bacon. But I would say that her music actually improved over time, Chapter II was a better album than Ashanti and Concrete Rose was better than either. And the later albums have some good songs like the Babyface-penned "Mother." It's not that often in R&B that someone improves creatively while they decline commercially. I also think that "Sweet Baby" and "Turn It Up" are better Ashanti/Ja Rule songs that most of the hits they had together.
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on Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 10:03 AM.
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