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Ashanti

R&B starlet Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas was born in Glen Cove, New York - an affluent Long Island community - on October 13, 1980. Her parents named her after the Ashanti Empire, a wealthy African monarchy that historically afforded equal rights to women. Ashanti showed an affinity for entertainment at an early age, studying ballet and jazz dancing at a magnet high school before moving on to focus on a singing career. She received her first recording contract at age fourteen after performing live for entertainment mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in his office, though the deal with Jive Records eventually fell through due to creative differences.

Puffy's Jive Records wanted to groom Ashanti into a pop artist, but she had no interest in the genre, preferring soul and R&B more in the vein of her childhood idols Mary J. Blige and Ella Fitzgerald. She terminated the contract and returned to high school where she distinguished herself as a star athlete in track and field, catching the attention of talent scouts from distinguished schools like Princeton University and Hampton University. Though Ashanti's athletic ability nabbed her a number of scholarships, she instead opted to take another shot at becoming a singer, signing a contract with Epic Records immediately after graduation in 1998.

Like her experiment with Jive Records four years earlier, her deal with Epic turned sour after the label failed to promote her and Ashanti soon found herself away from Epic and in the studio with gangsta rap mastermind Irv Gotti, CEO of The Inc. (formerly known as Murder Inc.) Records. Gotti used Ashanti to pen songs for a number of artists, and eventually moved to using her as a supporting female hook in songs alongside prominent rap artists like Fat Joe, Ja Rule, and Big Pun. Impressed with hear early work with the Murder Inc. crew, Gotti offered Ashanti a full record contract, releasing her first selftitled album Ashanti in 2002.