Ashanti‘s breakout single “Unfoolish” included the assistance of the late Notorious B.I.G., and two decades later, the songstress is still so grateful.
The former Murder Inc. artist stopped by Debut Live on Monday (December 19) and reflected on her 20-year career. While discussing the song that put her on the map, Ashanti recalled how exciting it was to get her hands on Biggie’s vocals from his track “Fuck You Tonight” for her song.
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“Gosh I’ll never forget. We went down to the office – this is when Harve [Pierre] was down in the basement,” she said. “That’s where all the B.I.G. stuff was. I remember going down there and it felt like we had like, a prize. You know? It was his vocals!
“And the fact that they gave us the okay to use his verse… And again, me being a new artist!” Ashanti continued. “You know, I haven’t sold any records yet. The fact that they gave us his verse was an amazing accomplishment.”
Things didn’t always go seamlessly in her career, however, as she recently recalled the time a producer she was working with held their collaboration ransom in exchange for shower sex.
“I’ve been in a crazy situation with one producer — I think I might have talked about this once,” Ashanti said during an appearance on The Breakfast Club earlier this month. “We did two records together. He was like, ‘Okay, I’m not gonna charge you, you my homie.’ And then when it came time to put it on the album, he was like, ‘Well, let’s take a shower together.’
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“And I thought he was joking! And then he was like, ‘Nah, I’m dead serious. Let’s take a shower together and I’ll give you the records. If not, I need 40 racks per record.’ And again, I thought he was joking because we had been working with each other for like, I don’t know, a couple of weeks.”
The situation was seemingly later “handled” after she made “some phone calls,” although she didn’t get into specifics – something Akademiks didn’t seem to like.
Shortly after the interview aired, the media personality called her out for not naming the culprit.
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“I wish she revealed the name,” Akademiks said on a live stream. “Ashanti, you’ve been in the industry for 20 years now, just say the name. Just say the fucking name. I don’t think you do any service to any other woman who might work with this n-gga later.
“They’re probably over there sucking cock for a beat and the beat don’t even turn out to be nothing. If some shit like that happened and you’re trying to speak about it on the interview for awareness, why not just say the n-gga name?”
Ashanti has yet to respond to Akademiks.
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