Female R&B Newcomers Chart High: Ashanti Bows At No. 1 & Tweet At No. 3

NEW YORK (Top40 Charts) - Females are ruling the R&B roost this week as N.Y.-based singer Ashanti -? best known until now for her appearances on Ja Rule's "Always on Time" and Fat Joe's "What's Luv" ?- debuts at No. 1 and Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott prot�g� Tweet debuts at No. 3 on The Billboard 200.

Ashanti's (full name, Ashanti Douglas) self-titled debut album took the top spot with just over a half million units sold (502,524), which is the highest first-week sales mark for an R&B artist all year and second highest of any genre thus far.

Ashanti knocks Celine Dion's New Day Has Come down to No. 2. Tweet's debut album, Southern Hummingbird, comes in at No. 3 with far less -- 194,928 -- in first-week sales. Rounding out the top five are Now That's What I Call Music! 9 at No. 4 and O Brother, Where Art Thou? at No. 5.

Other notable debuts on the chart include Jagged Edge's Jagged Little Thrill (No. 113), Lil' J's All About J (No. 148), and Apex Theory's Topsy-Turvy (No. 157).