Inside the sweltering conference room of Universal Records, Ashanti splays out across a plush gray couch as she gets ready to talk to Kiwibox Senior Editor Blair about her fourth album The Declaration. She has been doing interviews for the past couple of hours, and it's not until after she has reapplied her blood red lip gloss and taken a swig of cranberry juice that she's re-energized. After discussing the content on her MySpace page with her mom, the R&B and hip-hop princess is back into chat mode as she sits down to discuss her newest record.
The Declaration is a turning point in Ashanti's career, marking the first time that she has had complete creative control over the production of her record. Instead of following orders from longtime collaborators Ja Rule and Irv Gotti, Ashanti handpicked the producers, wrote most of the tracks and guided its overall sound. The R&B vixen didn't completely go it alone, though, enlisting help from collaborators like Nelly, Akon and Robin Thicke as well as producers Jermaine Dupri, L.T. Hutton and Babyface, among a handful of others.
girl girl