Ashanti had a hit in her hands, alongside Fat Joe and Ja Rule, with “What’s Luv?” in 2001. But there’s one thing she never knew about the song.
To Ashanti’s surprise, she wasn’t the vocalist originally in mind for the final version of the track.
Fat Joe dropped the news in the middle of an Instagram Live chat with Ashanti on Friday (May 15). On Saturday, her name was trending on Twitter with countless messages of disbelief and support from fans.
“Irv and Ja had called me, and they woke me up [at] like 3 in the morning, and they say, ‘Yo, come down, we made a song for you,” he recalled. “I go to the studio, it was like 4 in the morning. They played ‘What’s Luv?’ and you on it. And they was telling me, ‘Yo, this is for you and J. Lo. We want the Latinos on this.”
Ashanti, calling in from home, didn’t hide her reaction. “What?” she mouthed.
“That’s a fact,” he said.
“Yo, I never knew that,” Ashanti admitted.
“I was like, yo, J. Lo? She [Ashanti] sound amazing on here,” Joe said. “I was like, ‘Nah, we leaving her there.'”
“Damn,” Ashanti said. “What the! You know I don’t curse in front of my fans.”
Watch their full conversation — with the “What’s Love” chatter beginning at the 40:20 mark — below.