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Ashanti is an incredibly feminine and very talented singer, actress, model, and dancer in one person. Back in her teenage age, she starred in numerous films and TV shows, as well as started songwriting.
Ashanti became the first female artist whose singles were able to reach the top two positions in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. In total, Ashanti was nominated for around 50 awards and won over 20 of them. Moreover, her debut studio album “Ashanti'' won a Grammy award for the Best Contemporary R&B Album. Ashanti released 6 studio albums of nice R&B music on her record labels Murder Inc., Def Jam, and Motown.
The full artist’s name is Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas. She was born on October 13, 1980, in Cove, New York, in the creative family: her mother was a dance teacher, and her father was a singer. When the girl was 12 years old, Tina Douglas had discovered the daughter’s singing talent, and since that moment she has been supporting Ashanti in all undertakings related to her career as an artist. The girl had already appeared on the TV screen. She began from performances in a local talent show and at several small festivals. Then she began acting in “Spike Lee's Malcolm X” and in “Ted Demme's Who's the Man'' films. Although she was mostly known as an actress, Ashanti had a strong wish to develop a music career as a singer. Thus, she permanently performed in and around New York as well as communicated with various record labels. Also, Ashanti started the practice of songwriting. Soon, her incredible vocal skills were noticed by Irv Gotti, one of the American record producers. Upon his request, Ashanti paned rap hooks for Irv’s rap artists and performed with them. Since that time, Ashanti has been succeeding to cooperate with a row of other rappers as a back-vocalist and featured artist. Thanks to featuring two hits by other artists, Ashanti became the first female artist whose singles were able to reach the top two positions in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The wish to develop herself as a singer, but not as a back-vocalist in her music career forced Ashanti to start releasing her own singles. Thus, in 2002, Ashanti released the debut studio album “Ashanti” that reached the №1 position on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and was triple platinum-certified. The first album’s single “Foolish” spent 10 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Actually, this single is Ashanti’s biggest success to date. Without any doubt, she became one of the most forward-looking singers at that time. But as you all know, for any success there could be found depreciation. One time, Ashanti became the subject of controversy. The point was she should be awarded the Soul Train Aretha Franklin Award for "Entertainer of the Year". But a high school student affirmed Ashanti was too new to deserve the award. Despite this, Asanti received the award on the Pasadena Civic Auditorium stage after all.
In 2003, Ashanti released her second album “Chapter II” which sold more than 1.5 million copies in the US. It’s the first single "Rock wit U (Awww Baby)" became a hit just like the first single of the previous singer’s album. Very soon, Ashanti also released a Christmas album that peaked at №160 in the Billboard Charts. After releasing the third album “Concrete Rose”, Ashanti focused more on her acting career. At the time, she also started dating rapper Nelly with whom she met at a press conference for the 2003 Grammy Awards. In 2005, the artist succeeded to play the role of a pregnant teenager named Kyra in the film Coach Carter. The film was a real success: it pulled around 8 million viewers when it premiered. The next year, she starred in the teen comedy John Tucker Must Die as Heather. This film competed with “Pirates of Caribbean” and "Miami Vice" and won the third position at the US box office as a result.
After Ashanti had successfully made strides to her acting career ladder, Ashanti also decided to return to music activity. Thus, in 2009, she released the next studio album titled “The Declaration '' that got the lowest week sales number compared to all other Ashanti’s albums. At the time, she also announced her breakup with The Inc. Records and signed the contract with Written Entertainment. In 2004, the artist released the fifth album “Braveheart”, as well as ended her relationships with Nelly. She promised to release the seventh album in 2018, but that year, Ashanti had created several singles in collaboration with other artists(for example, "Say Less" with Ty Dolla Sign). In 2019, the world heard Ashanti’s new single “Floating”. Currently, amazing Ashanti continues her singing and acting careers. And, right now, you can listen to Ashanti’s hits in the virtual concert with her In Session Soundcheck performance on the CEEK stage.