Ashanti’s Reason For Re-Recording Her Debut Album
Ashanti‘s debut album introduced her to the world two decades ago. In the time since then, the “Foolish” singer has grown as an artist, an entertainer, and a businesswoman. In the early 2020s, she decided to highlight her early music and re-record her 2002 debut album.
Ashanti’s debut album came out in 2002
Ashanti‘s self-titled debut album was released in April 2002. The album came after her domination of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her collaborations with Fat Joe and Ja Rule, “What’s Luv?” and “Always on Time,” reached the top two spots on the chart, making her the first female artist in history to achieve that feat. Her first solo single, 2002’s “Foolish,” spent an astounding 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Since then, Ashanti has continued to release music and maintain her spot as a respected singer from two decades ago. In recent years, she’s experienced a newfound popularity as early 2000s trends become increasingly popular. In 2021, she competed against Keyshia Cole in an anticipated Verzuz battle.
Now, Ashanti plans to celebrate her debut album’s 20th birthday in a big way.
Ashanti is re-recording her debut album
In advance of her debut album’s 20-year anniversary, Ashanti is re-recording all of the songs on the project so she can own the masters and the rights to her music. She spoke about the decision in a 2021 interview on The Breakfast Club.
“As an artist, when you are in the game for a certain amount of time, you pay your dues and things are supposed to come back to you,” she said. “So with my album being 20 years old in April, obviously it makes sense for me to go in and re-record so I can collect my coins.”
“So it’s not necessarily changing the vibe, but just injecting something new sonically to it,” she continued, teasing that she might have some exciting guest appearances on the project. “Once I re-record that and that’s available, then that’s what goes to all the streaming platforms and all of those residuals and that money comes to me.”
Taylor Swift and other artists have re-recorded their music
Ashanti actually spoke to Murder Inc. Records founder Irv Gotti about getting the rights to her masters years ago, despite them belonging to Universal Music Group. “For me, what I spoke about was giving me my files so when I’m performing on tour, the band has what they need to collectively create the records the right way,” she said. “We spoke about that a couple of years ago and it was an issue.”
Ashanti pointed out that re-recording your own songs to create new masters is nothing new. Taylor Swift, for example, is in the process of re-recording her first six albums so that she can have full ownership of her music.
“It’s not unheard of,” Ashanti explained. “It’s not a disrespectful thing. It’s not about trying to take away from something. It’s about growing and maturing and understanding ownership is important.”
