The Singles Jukebox

Proving what we’ve always known: Rick Ross is the modern day Ja Rule…

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[4.25]Crystal Leww: Ashanti’s album Braveheart comes out today, an endeavor that has been in the works since 2010. This comes across very plainly in “I Got It”, which is a trend-chasing mess. To clarify, I mean that it is chasing a trend from 2011, doing its best Kelly Rowland “Motivation” impression, down to the music video. As hot as “Motivation” remains to this day, “I Got It” doesn’t really work for a laundry list of reasons, most significant being Ashanti herself. Her voice is much too soft, too sweet and it gets lost, totally drowned out in this heavy mix. As a result of how little her voice sounds throughout, Ashanti sounds completely and totally unconvincing as someone who is bragging about her money and sexual prowess. Let me explain: you can still sing about getting money and having sex with this kind of voice because women are multidimensional beings, but this is the wrong way to do it for her. Check that brief pause in the beat where she sings “floating”; it is the best part of this entire mess and it is tonally totally different. Plus, Rick Ross isn’t even the duet partner that Lil Wayne is, which is really sad when you consider how low of a bar that was in the first place. There are like 15 seconds in the beginning of the track where Future harmonizes. Just consider how much more appropriate that would have been and weep.
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Jonathan Bradley: She was cuter with Jeffrey.
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Alfred Soto: She whispered sweet nothings with her sweet nothing voice on a couple of good hits, notably “Happy.” She remains sweet but the track is a nothing. As for Ross, he grunts like he knows Ashanti’s the kind of decorative object brought to award shows.
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Anthony Easton: I never quite figured out what the power of Rick Ross’  contribution was, except Mack-trucking his ego over much more interesting singers (often younger, often female). 8 for her singing, 3 for his production. 5.5, rounded up.
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Brad Shoup: The synthbell and vocal melodies are separated by a half-step or so of sweetness; the harmonics are really neat. But neat choruses are kind of her thing. And anyway, I know we’re all playacting here, but the only prices over Rozay’s head are on the dollar menu.
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Megan Harrington: For obvious reasons, when I see Ashanti rubbing against Rick Ross all I can hear is “what’s luuuuuv,” which is truly doing Rick Ross no favors. Fat Joe is hardly hanging in the hall of fame, but Rozay sounds especially unconvincing here. To make matters worse, Ashanti is still a hook singer foremost so asking her carry the song, dud verse and all, is well beyond her measure.
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Edward Okulicz: J.Lo is singing about being real again, Ja Rule is out of prison, of course Ashanti’s album has found the right time to emerge. Her voice is still the same saccharine nothing it always was, and putting Rick Ross on top doesn’t help at all — any time he interjects on the track he buries her, like a gas that expands to fill the room. Despite that, “I Got It” has a few neat tricks — the first line of each verse reminds of me of the flow from “Ignition (Remix)”… well, okay, it has one neat trick.
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Katherine St Asaph: If this were 2000 critics would cover this rejoice in snide comments about Ashanti needing reams of backing vocals: misguided, but not really wrong. A decade of production since and this still sounds dated to five separate years, none of which granted Ashanti’s vox much more gravitas. Industry churn still sucks — there are always newer, thinner voices — so I want to support this, but I can’t imagine who it’s for.
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