Ashanti (singer)

Ashanti Douglas is a pop star who quickly rose to fame during early 2002 as a result of her good looks and distinctive voice, which worked equally well as background vocals in rap songs and on their own.

She first was brought into the public eye as a featured background vocalist on Vita's 2001 hip hop remake of Madonna's "Justify My Love," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie "The Fast And The Furious". That same year, she caught the attention of Fat Joe, and he invited her to sing background for Big Pun's unsuccessful posthumous single "How We Roll".

Ashanti's big break, however, didn't come until early 2002, when, almost simultaneously, Ja Rule released the song "Always On Time" and Fat Joe released "What's Luv". They were two of the biggest pop hits of the year, and both featured Ashanti. Shortly afterwards, Ashanti released her own single, "Foolish," which contained a simple of the late Biggie Smalls' hit song, a remix of "One More Chance". It was the year's biggest hit, according to Billboard, spending eleven weeks at number one on the pop charts, thanks in part to a remix called "Unfoolish," which featured a rap by Biggie, and got heavy urban radio[?] airplay. Ashanti's follow-up singles, "Happy" and "Baby" were smaller hits later that same year. During the summer of 2002, Ashanti also appeared on a Ja Rule song called "Down 4 U," along with labelmates Vita and Charli Baltimore. In 2003, she released an album called Chapter 2[?].

In early 2003, Ja Rule and Ashanti teamed up again and scored a massive hit with "Mesmerize".