*Ashanti found out on Instagram Live that she wasn’t the first choice to sing the hook for “What’s Luv?” in 2001.
Fat Joe dropped the news during their IG Live chat on Friday (May 15), revealing that Jennifer Lopez was supposed to sing over Ashanti’s demo vocals for the final version of the track. The following day, Ashanti’s name was trending on Twitter with fans expressing disbelief and offering support.
Fat Joe told Ashanti: “Irv and Ja [Rule] 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.”
“What?” Ashanti mouthed, genuinely shocked.
“That’s a fact,” he said.
“Yo, I never knew that,” Ashanti said.
“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 the full chat session — and the “What’s Luv” exchange at the 40:20 mark — below, or click here to watch at Billboard.com.
View this post on Instagram
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
