Ashanti

Ashanti is the self-titled debut studio album by American R&B recording artist Ashanti, released on April 2, 2002, by Murder Inc. Records and Def Jam Records. The album was recorded between 2001 and 2002 in Crackhouse Studios (New York) and SoundCastle Studios (Los Angeles), during the period of time where Ashanti was writing for other artists. Ashanti worked with a variety of producers including Irv Gotti, Chink Santana, 7 Aurelius, Jared Thomas, Reggie Wright as well as Ashanti co-writing all the songs on the album. Its music incorporates R&B, hip hop, hip hop soul, urban. The album features guest vocals from The Notorious B.I.G. and Ja Rule.
Ashanti debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart with first-week sales of an impressive 503,000 units, the biggest first-week sales for a debut female artist, a record she held for seven years until Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream which shifted 701,000 copies in its opening week. The album was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of 3,000,000 copies on December 17, 2002. It earned Ashanti three Grammy nominations for Best New Artist, Best Contemporary R&B Album, and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Ashanti also received two additional Grammy nominations in the same year for other projects, both in the category of Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.
Billboard magazine ranked Ashanti at number 100 on magazine's Top 200 Albums of the Decade. Ashanti mentioned on Ustream that she plans to re-release the album for its 10th anniversary in 2012. She planned on adding Tracks such as "Down 4 U" and "The Pledge" to the album which were huge hits in 2002 the same time "Foolish" "Happy" and "Baby" were on the charts.