THE ADVENTURES OF DON GHOTTI & DON PITTS: THE PRESSURES OF SELLING A RECORD

AWWWW....NOT ASHANTI !!!

EXCLUSIVE A** SHOTS !!!

"Body On Me" Video Pictures

Ashanti

Birth Date: October 13, 1980
Birth Place: Glen Cove, Long Island, NY

Biography Ashanti Douglas was born in 1980 in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York into a musical family. Her father used to sing and her mother is a dance instructor. Ashanti began to sing in a gospel choir at the age of 6. As she grew, her musical talent developed and with it, appearances followed.

She danced in a show at Carnegie Hall and in the Disney television musical Polly. It was in high school that she honed her songwriting skills and harnessed her talent for creating a story that people could relate to, song after song.

and she's rolling

Ashanti first announced her presence with the Big Pun hit "How We Roll" in 2001. Her sound was infectious and caught the attention of record producers. Irv Gotti, the polished producer with Murder Inc. Records, was credited with her discovery and what was supposed to be an initial collaboration, turned into a record contract. The demure and feminine Ashanti was hesitant at first to sign with a label named Murder Inc., but she filled a void in the company stable of talent. What was a pure rap label became stronger with the arrival of the R&B singer.

The marketing team at Murder Inc. went to work to promote Ashanti in time for her debut release. She was featured on the Ja Rule smash "Always On Time," receiving major air wave and video exposure. In addition, her voice was loaned out to reigning Don of the Terror Squad, Fat Joe, for his big hit "What's Luv?". Ashanti stole both songs away from the thug rappers and created such a buzz that her self-titled debut album was released early, on April 9, 2002.

timing was key

The first single "Foolish" ripped apart the charts and the video was on heavy rotation as well. As a result, Ashanti sold over half a million units the first week and debuted in the top spot, a major achievement for a relative unknown with almost no expectations on her shoulders. In the future, you can expect to hear and see much more of this young talent. Ashanti has served notice that she is moving on up. -askmen.com

Post Murder Inc, we start to see Miss Ashanti's hit power start to decline.

Ashanti, who still holds the record for the biggest opening week for a female artist’s debut album (504,593 copies sold) and is tied with The Beatles as the only artist to have three singles in the Top 10 simultaneously.

THE DECLARATION scanned 86,278 units its first week in stores.

What's missing????
Well other than the experience of IRV GOTTI, timing, and a overall consistency, not very much. Ashanti has Nelly (one of Hip Hop's mogul) in her corner as well as Robin Thicke, Jermaine Dupri, LT Hutton, Babyface, and Pharrell Williams among the new album's producers.
The Inc/Universal has placed a tremendous pressure on this recording artist to scan units and in a hurry!
What would you tell your recording artist to do in this situation just shy of filming a SEX TAPE?!!!!
In the business of music, all artist have a scale in their dressing room (true story). On one side of this scale is the heavy pressure weight of selling records, and on the other scale is pride, dignity, self respect, morals, values, etc. The task of staying in perfect balance becomes overwhelming for artist and most often either attempt to drop a wack-ass album and get dropped from their label, while others simply remove some items from the second scale mentioned earlier (cross reference Janet). Male recording artist can recover and capitalize from the earlier mentioned SEX TAPE (cross reference Ray J) whereas the female recording artist attempt to leave at minimum morals and values on the scale. This is the current position of Ashanti, she's removed pride, self respect, and dignity from the scale. In her new video, she results to rather untactful ass shots. As a long time fan of her earlier work I would've preferred to see her drop a wack-ass album and get dropped and shift her focus to making films as well as writing for other artist. Is there a better solution.

I solicit your comments !!!
~DG

WE LEAVE YOU WITH SOME OF ASHANTI'S PREVIOUS HITS !!!

**ENJOY**

;)

Fat Joe feat. Ashanti - What's Love