Ashanti Is Low-Price Leader
A few short weeks ago, CDs were gathering dust in the nation’s record stores, where sales of new albums were down 10% from a year ago. Then along came Ashanti, a 21-year-old R&B; singer who was a virtual unknown until late last year.
In its first week of release, her self-titled debut album sold 502,000 copies, the year’s second-highest first-week total, behind the 527,000 copies of Celine Dion’s “A New Day Has Come.” After three weeks, Ashanti’s album has sold 940,000 copies and is still No. 1 on the charts.
“I expected it to be huge, but it was bigger than expected,” says Violet Brown, director of urban music for the Wherehouse retail chain. “There was a lot of noise on that record. Everybody was asking about it.”
The success reaffirms the importance of radio in selling records: Ashanti preceded the album with her own hit single and guest appearances on two others. But it also demonstrates how labels are looking for ways to revive their comatose business.
A key strategy in the Ashanti splash was a rebate of $2 per album offered to retailers by her label, Murder Inc./Island Def Jam Records. That allowed stores to sell the album at a price lower than the average of nearly $15 for its first two weeks in stores. Wherehouse, for instance, listed it at $11.99. The idea was to sacrifice some income for the sake of momentum.
“For the consumers that have been waiting for the project to come out, I just wanted to give it to them for a nice price,” says Irv Gotti, president of Murder Inc. “All the ones that get it first, they set the trends. It’s their word of mouth. When you’ve got a strong album, I want as many people to buy it so I can get a good word of mouth goin’. Next thing you know, everybody’s talkin’, ‘Yo, that album’s hot.’”
The Ashanti figure might have stirred things up industrywide.
“Ever since that happened, a lot of labels now are looking at it,” Brown says of the low-price incentive. “They’re just being a little bit creative in the way they’re doing it. Some are rebates and some are deeper discounts on the opening orders....
“The Naughty by Nature that’s coming is gonna have a good price. The P. Diddy remix album. They’re doing something interesting with the new Eminem album. It’s a $19.98 and it has a DVD in it. That should really help too as far as bootlegging goes.”
Other artists whose early sales may have been spurred by low sale prices include John Mayer, Josh Groban, Tweet and Norah Jones, who benefit from “developing artist” pricing that allows stores to sell their albums for less than $10.
But that kind of lure helps only if there’s some interest to begin with, and Murder Inc. had taken care of that. Gotti, who is also an in-demand record producer (he just recorded an Eve-Alicia Keys duet), paired Ashanti with his label’s star rapper, Ja Rule, on his single “Always on Time,” which hit the charts before Christmas and quickly moved to No. 1.
He also put her on “What’s Luv,” a single he produced for rapper Fat Joe, and released her own solo single debut, “Foolish” in February. This week, the latter is No. 1 on the Hot 100, and “What’s Luv” is No. 2.
If this sounds like a precision military campaign, Ashanti’s ascent is actually something more organic. Ashanti Douglas, a native of Glen Cove, N.Y., has sung most of her life and developed her writing skills in high school. A mutual friend brought her to Gotti, who was busy at the time producing Ja Rule’s “Pain Is Love” album.
“I said, ‘Just be a studio rat, hang around and we’ll see what happens,’” he recalls. “She kept coming to the studio and I kept throwing tests at her.”
Ashanti impressed Gotti especially with her writing ability. She co-wrote all the songs on “Ashanti” and also is a co-writer on the remix of Jennifer Lopez’s “Ain’t It Funny.” Convinced, Gotti signed her to Murder Inc., which is a 50-50 partner with the powerful Island Def Jam.
The recording of “Ashanti” went quickly, says Gotti, who tried to hook listeners by using a sample of DeBarge’s “Stay With Me” as a key element in the single “Foolish.” The same sample had also appeared in a recent remix of the Notorious B.I.G.’s “One More Chance.”
“I thought if we put out a record on her, and if the people take to it, it’s gonna be crazy,” says Gotti. “That’s why I chose the DeBarge loop as the sample, because I wanted a familiar beat that people would recognize, and then I wanted her lyrically to write something that’s gonna make people feel her. So it really worked out.”
Don’t expect things to die down. Ja Rule and Ashanti will spend much of June performing in radio-sponsored concerts, including KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango on June 15 at the Rose Bowl. Gotti describes her next single, “Happy,” as “a massive summertime record,” and another teaming with Ja Rule, “Down Wit You,” is also due soon. Then they’ll start work on Ashanti’s second album.
Says Gotti, “Once I have people’s attention, I like to keep it goin’.”