Day one Ashanti fans can expect a special surprise very soon!
On April 2, it marked as the 20th anniversary of the R&B icon’s eponymous debut album. To celebrate the big milestone, Ashanti announced on Instagram that she’ll be releasing her first NFT collection with EQ Exchange.
“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since my debut album ‘Ashanti’!!!!!!!! I’m so grateful that yall been rocking with me for over 20 years!!!!! Now I finally get to give you something in return. I’m beyond excited to officially announce that my NFT collection with @EQ.Exchange celebrating 20 years of ‘Ashanti will be available Wednesday, April 6th and I want y’all to have ownership in these new Masters!!! Which re recording should be first???” she wrote in her post’s caption.
The NFT collection is set to launch on April 6.
Ashanti x EQ Exchange
This year is panning out to be a historic one for Ashanti.
As previously reported by AfroTech, her partnership with the woman-owned Web3 platform marked her as “the first Black female artist to be a co-founder of a Web3 company.” The company officially launched on March 25.
“It’s so important to me to get the message out that artists should own their intellectual property,” Ashanti shared in a statement. “By empowering myself through new technology, I’m trying to help other women avoid going through the things that I’ve been through. The future belongs to those who take control and make it their own.”
As aforementioned by Ashanti via Instagram, the re-recordings for her debut album are coming soon, in an effort to regain ownership of her masters.
“I have an amazing legal team, and I got my first record deal when I was 14 years old, so understanding and seeing how things have changed so much from then to now and conceptually understanding what you’re signing is so imperative, it’s so important nowadays,” she said on The Tamron Hall Show in 2021. “The fact that I’ll be able to re-record my first album, and put everything together.”
