MTV sat down with Ashanti and interviewed her for their webcasts on the First Ladies in pop culture. They took Ashanti back on a lot her 1st “firsts”. I thought it was a pretty good interview check it out above.

Ashanti is back with a new longly anticpated album, The Declaration. This album is not what I expected, but in a very good way. Ashanti has came out of the box and broaden her lyrics and melodies. This album is an R&B album but it’s an upbeat album that doesn’t give you a lot “ballads” which I feel would be a good thing especially listening to new music from Ashanti. I listened to Diddy’s philosophy on new tracks. Ashanti definitely passed the “5 second rule”. Ashanti collaborated with many great producers on this new project. She’s worked with Kanye West, Jermaine Dupri, Akon, BabyFace, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, and more. The first single, “The Way That I Love You” which is still in heavy rotation on the radio was one of the hottest singles and videos of 2008. Some of the tracks on this album that stood out the most would be, “In These Streets”, “Things You Make Me Do” featuring Robin Thicke, “Good Good”, and “Shine”. This is a great return for Ashanti. If you haven’t picked up this album it’s now in stores on iTunes.

Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo (of production team The Neptunes) and Shay Haley, collectively known as N*E*R*D, return to release their third studio album, Seeing Sounds (Interscope), available June 9th, 2008; but you may pre-order the album on AMAZON now!

N-E-R-D.COM // MYSPACE.COM/NERDOFFICIAL

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Plies is recording with a lot of top R&B artists and I like that idea. It actually appeals people to his music more. Plies has been deep in this R&B game for awhile too. You think he’ll pull a T-Pain and become a “rapper turnt sanga”. I don’t think so…but I definitely like this new track, “#1 Fan” featuring Keyshia Cole & J. Holiday. This track will be on Plies upcoming album, Definiton Of Real (Atlantic/Slip-N-Slide). In Stores June 10th!

♫ Click Here To Listen To Plies – “#1 Fan”