Songoftheday 4/18/23 - See my days are cold without you, but I'm hurting while I'm with you...

 

 

"Foolish" - Ashanti

from the album Ashanti (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (ten weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 27

 

Today's song comes from R&B singer Ashanti Douglas, who grew up in Long Island, New York, did some acting as a child, but chose to pursue a music career. Eventually she was signed on to Irv "Gotti" Lorenzo and Ja Rule's Murder Inc. label, where she started out as a singer commissioned to do the musical "hooks" of tracks from rap artists on the label (to make them more "radio-friendly"). Dropping her surname, Ashanti appeared on two huge pop hits with rapper Ja Rule's "Always On Time" which topped Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the beginning of 2002, followed by Fat Joe's "What's Luv?" which went to #2 for seven weeks. The reason the latter song didn't go all the way to the top was Ashanti herself, who's debut single "Foolish" was released that February (a week after "What's Luv"). Written by the singer with producer Irv "Gotti" Lorenzo, using a sample of the R&B deep cut from DeBarge "Stay With Me", which gave members Mark and Etterline "Bunny" DeBarge writing credit, the song has Ashanti lamenting how she keeps going back to a bad relationship because she hurts too much without him. The thing is, she's completely light on receipts on why he's treating her wrongly (maybe an attempt to be universally relatable to the audience) and it just comes across being a sad vibe. Nevertheless, the vibe worked (hell, the sample which already had been appropriated before by the Notorious B.I.G.), and the machine behind Murder Inc Records got radio and record stores on board, and Ashanti found herself with not only a big hit, but a massive one, spending double-digits at the top...

"Foolish" spent ten weeks at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 starting in April of 2002, while doing the same on their R&B Singles chart. On the radio, the song went to #2 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, topped the R&B Airplay list for nine weeks, peaked at #12 on the older-skewing Adult R&B station tally, and spent eight weeks at #1 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the United Kingdom (#4), Australia (#6), and New Zealand (#8), and made the top-40 in the Netherlands (#12), Ireland (#14), Switzerland (#15), Germany (#26), and Belgium (#37 Wallonia/#49 Flanders). Her debut album Ashanti, released as the song was cresting that April, spent three weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and four atop the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2003, the Ashanti album won for Best Contemporary R&B Album, while the singer was up for Best New Artist, losing to Norah Jones. "Foolish" was also nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, which went home with Mary J. Blige for "He Think I Don't Know". 

Both Ashanti and the album will be back to the series. 

(5/10)

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Here's Ashanti performing the song on The Tonight Show...

and lastly, on a web series in 2013 where she talks about the song then performs it live.

Up tomorrow: A tragically late R&B singer is larger than life.