I have to admit, one of the upsides about us being quarantined are the celebrities who’ve been linking up on IG live and spilling all the industry tea for us fans to soak up. And there were no shortage of industry tales courtesy of Fat Joe.
Joey Crack got Ashanti on the line and took us back to the year 2002, revealing to her that she almost didn’t make the cut on their hit What’s Luv? He said that Ja Rule and Irv Gotti called him up in the dead of night and told him to come to the studio. Once he arrived, Joe says they played him the remixed version of his song with Ashanti vocals on it … but told him they wanted J Lo on the track instead.
Irv thought it would be a good idea to play up the Latin angle by having two Puerto Ricans on the track, since at the time we were in the middle of the Latin explosion with singers such as Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony.
For those of you who have been following both ladies’ careers (which span about two decades), then you are aware of the numerous songs Ashanti wrote that eventually turned out to be big hits for La Lopez (Ashanti wrote Ain’t It Funny, while Ja wrote I’m Real with Ashanti singing the reference for Lopez to mimic in the studio).
Yesterday, Fat Joe told Ashanti that Irv and Ja wanted to take her off “What’s Luv” and replace her with JLo instead to make it “for the Latinos.” Ashanti never knew! pic.twitter.com/uTyNrmGOL6 — Ivie Ani (@ivieani) May 16, 2020
I believe all of this stems from Tommy Mottola, the ex-husband of Mariah who used J Lo as a pawn to sabotage his ex-wife. Irv revealed in XXL that his company cut a record with Carey for the Glitter soundtrack, and Mottola, who was the head of Sony at the time, instructed Irv to cut a track with Lopez and get the song out before Glitter was finished. After the I’m Real remix successfully topped the Hot 100 for several weeks, J. Lo’s label wanted to capitalize on her breaking into the newfound urban market, which is why she and Ja continued to collaborate with each other. I don’t think Ashanti has any hard feelings towards J Lo. I think her beef is more towards Irv and the dirty games he (and so many industry execs) played as a businessman. Besides, since Ashanti is a songwriter she’s laughing all the way to the bank.
After hearing this story I can actually imagine myself hearing J Lo on the track, but I’m glad they kept Ashanti on instead. The song went to #2 on the Billboard hot 100 charts, and stayed there for 20 weeks.
In case y’all need a reminder of Ashanti talking about the songs she’s written for J Lo before she was signed to Murder Inc., check out her BlogXilla interview where she talks about I’m Real (at the 3:00 mark) below…
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