Ashanti strikes gold

NEW YORK -- It seems as if everything Ashanti touches these days turns to gold -- or platinum.

The 21-year-old R&B singer has a No. 1 hit song, "Foolish"; she knocked Celine Dion from the top of the charts with her self-titled debut album, which has sold 1 million copies in less than a month; and she has had three simultaneous top 10 hits on the Billboard charts, a feat last accomplished by The Beatles.

In recent weeks, she had the Nos. 1 and 2 singles simultaneously. She also helped write the latest smash for J. Lo, the remix to "Ain't It Funny."

Yet not one but two major record companies let Ashanti slip through their fingers before she signed late last year with Murder Inc., which has racked up hit after hit thanks mainly to her and multi-platinum rapper Ja Rule.

"With all the letdowns that I've gone through, it's crazy to be here right now," she says.

Ashanti Douglas, a native of Glen Cove in Long Island, N.Y., has been singing since she was a child in local talent shows. She got her big break at age 14, when she was signed to Jive Records, home of teen-pop superstars such as the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and Britney Spears.

"They would send a car to pick me up in high school," she recalls. "I'd have my books, do my homework, start recording and they'd have a car bring me back home."

But the music wasn't working, and after about a year, Ashanti and the label parted ways, she says.

She wasn't discouraged. At 17, she signed with Sony's Epic Records in a deal that required her to move to Atlanta.

"My mother was going crazy," she says. "I will never forget the day that I really really had to leave -- oh my God, everybody was crying."

"It kind of broke up the family," says Ashanti's mother, Tina Douglas, who is also her co-manager. "(But) it helped her learn a lot about the business in that it's not really what it's cracked up to be. All that glitters is not gold."

Ashanti spent a year in Atlanta before disappointment struck again -- the person who signed her was dismissed from the label, and his acts were dropped.

She began reconsidering her dream of being a singer.

"The second time around ... all of my friends are coming back from college, and they're talking about classes and new guys and parties and stuff that's going on," she says. "And I'm like, 'Man, I can be in college. Am I really doing the right thing? ... Is this another lesson to tell me I need to take another path?"'

Yet when her mother asked whether she wanted to go back to school instead, Ashanti was resolute.

"She was like, 'I want to do the music thing.' So I had to let her be a young woman at that point," says Douglas. "She's a very strong-willed person, and when she goes after something, she finishes it."

It would take another two years before Ashanti found career success. She moved back to New York and went to school part-time while recording demos and looking for a record deal.

Her persistence paid off in 2000, when she met Chris Gotti, brother of Murder Inc. president Irv Gotti, who had helped make Ja Rule a star. Gotti tapped Ashanti to sing vocals for a posthumous recording by rapper Big Pun. The song, "How We Roll," was a hit in early 2001 and got people wondering who the girl singing sweetly in the background was.

Ashanti was featured on Ja Rule's hit that fall, "Always On Time," and in his video. Soon, she was on another hit collaboration, with Fat Joe on the song "What's Love."

With those hits rising on the charts, Ashanti wasn't even signed to a record label.

Murder Inc. quickly rectified that.

Between concert dates with Ja Rule, Ashanti started working on her own album, looking for that first hit all her own. It came with "Foolish," which borrows its melody from an old DeBarge song. The melody's best known as the hook for Notorious B.I.G.'s classic rap track "One More Chance."

Ashanti says she hesitated when Irv Gotti told her that would be the basis for her first song.

"I'm like, 'C'mon Irv, this is a Biggie classic. How you gonna put that much pressure on me? I can't do this record. ... People are expecting a lot from me. Why am I going to come out with a remake?' But I was wrong, and the record is blowing up."

Although some attribute part of the record's success to a rebate offer, Billboard's Geoff Mayfield said that's only part of the story.

"You put something on sale that people don't want to get, it's not going to sell," he says. "Say what you will, this artist has succeeded at radio to the point where she has been on three big hits."

Ashanti has barely had a chance to comprehend her success. But she understands enough to be grateful that her third shot worked out.

"I definitely want to go back to school," she says with a smile, "but not right now."