NEW YORK (Universal Motown) - The fourth studio album by The Inc./Universal Motown superstar singer-songwriter ASHANTI, titled THE DECLARATION, reaches retail stores and digital online sellers on June 3rd, 2008. Album producers and collaborators include such genre-defining talents as
Robin Thicke, Jermaine Dupri, Babyface, L.T. Hutton, and Pharrell Williams.
The Declaration's first smash single, 'The Way That I Love You,' maintains a Top 3 posting in the national Urban radio airplay chart, and is continuing to bullet upward in the Top 20 of Rhythmic/Crossover radio stations nationally, and is top 25 in the adult-targeted Urban AC format. The track remains a Top 10 entry on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, after a 14-week run and a peak position of No. 2.
To celebrate the album release, ASHANTI appears on BET 106 & Park on June 2nd, MTV TRL on June 3rd, performs at the Virgin Mega Store Times Square on June 3rd, performs live on ABC's Good Morning America on June 6th from Manhattan's Bryant Park, also performs on ABC's Live With Regis & Kelly on June 6th, and on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on June 13th.
The album's release date also marks the launch of a special on-line campaign 'I Declare Me...' by the artist. The campaign's core is a very personal focus on the self-definition and empowerment of women across the United States, with its home base at Ashanti's official website. The campaign will create a safe and inclusive on-line space to for women to share testimonies on the site. Participants will be able to openly declare their own breakthroughs, revelations, struggles and victories in every life area they choose: career, birth, death, relationships, and personal situations. 'I Declare Me...' also invites women to a virtual discussion with Ashanti on such issues as voter registration, teen obesity, and other concerns facing women today.
Grammy-winner ASHANTI has been a trailblazer and role model for the new breed of multi-talented young artists since her 2001 chart debut as a featured artist on the No. 1 Ja Rule single 'Always on Time.' She made history at the 2002 release of her first album Ashanti, which entered at No. 1 nationally, and sold over 500,000 in its first week, the record for a female debut artist. In the same week, she held the No. 1 and No. 2 singles in the Billboard Hot 100, with her self-written solo single 'Foolish' and her collaboration with Fat Joe, 'What's Luv?' With 'Always on Time' remaining in the Top 10, she became the only artist since The Beatles to have her first three singles charting in the Top 10 simultaneously. Ashanti also co-wrote a fourth song in the same week's Top 10, Jennifer Lopez' 'Ain't It Funny.'
Both of ASHANTI's succeeding albums, Chapter II and Concrete Rose, are certified by RIAA for sales in excess of a million copies. As an actress, Ashanti appeared in the No. 1 box-office smashes Coach Carter and Resident Evil: Extinction, and in John Tucker Must Die and Bride and Prejudice. She is the author of the poetry collection Foolish/Unfoolish: Reflections on Love, and the forthcoming teen-targeted life and style book Ashanti Style (Jump at the Sun/Hyperion).
