I watched the Ashanti interview she did with Angie Martinez on her show IRL (In Real Life) and I will say I am happy she was able to do it on a platform that was not disrespectful to her name and what she is accomplishing musically right now. I’m not going to lie though I was not going to watch it, but I remembered how Irv Gotti handled himself on Drink Champs recently with rapper Ja Rule.
Every time he was asked a question even if it had no relevancy to her Irv would maneuver back to Ashanti. I kept thinking, damn this nigga really butt hurt STILL over this woman. It was almost embarrassing to watch actually. But getting back to Ashanti’s interview, I learned 5 things while watching it:
- Always keep it cute and classy. Ashanti kept her shit cute and classy as hell. Total opposite of what Irv did. Why? Because she is unbothered and have moved on. In my life I’ve learned not to respond to everything. The only person who suffers is you. It drains your energy trust me. I used to eat, breathe and shit anger every day. It was to the point where it affected me physically. NOT responding, especially when that person is expecting you to fucks with them mentally because they realize they no longer have control over you. This happened twenty years ago — nigga get over it already. There was no reason for Ashanti to come out the side of her neck like so many people would have anyway; Irv did a fine fucking job of making himself look dumb and thirsty as hell. Black women, we all know, are viewed as violent, ratchet, angry and unintelligent ( I could go on but I ain’t got time). I applaud this Queen for keeping it classy and cute.
- Things are not always what it seems. I always say there are 3 sides to every story — his, her’s and the truth. It is amazing how two people can be in the same situation but see things completely different. And this was a prime example. While Irv swears they were in a relationship, Ashanti said they never were. They had sex but they were never official. In Irv’s eyes he not only was in a relationship, he believed he made her. He claimed Ashanti made a song about him when in actuality she was out shopping and while in her car in the parking lot she came up with and wrote the song Happy. The biggest thing that tripped me up is that he told her he made her fuckable. Now he went too far with that shit. If that was the case why didn’t he make himself fuckable? This fool leaned on the fact that he was high yellow and felt he was God’s gift to any female and they should be grateful. Between you and me, I’ve shitted out poop that looked better.
- Men are more sensitive than women. The fact that Irv Gotti after all of these years is hurt over this is telling. Men walk around with their chests all out, holding their dicks and shit however when a female screw them over they are devastated way more than a woman in my opinion. They hate when a woman does to them what they regularly do to us. The way Irv spoke on how he found out she was dating Nelly was weird. All of that jealousy and animosity simmered in him this whole time. Strong enough for me to feel it through the television screen. Ashanti hit the hammer on the nail when she said he was giving feminine energy. I know Irv was watching that interview sucking on his teeth, blood pressure rising by the second and probably shed a tear or two over it. Now that is a funny ass visual.
- You do not know who your friends are. A few rappers came out in defense for Ashanti after Irv’s interview which was all great and shit but where was this energy back then? Ja Rule sat next to his ass on Drink Champs and repeated over and over he was being neutral. Listen, you can be best friends, fam, whatever but if that person is not acting right check that muthafucka! Irv was aggressively disrespectful during the interview and Ja really did not check a nigga as hard as I felt (Ashanti felt the same too) he should have. It is one thing to allow “family” to settle their disputes or whatever you want to call it; it’s another when a person sit back and let one verbally abuse the other one whether that person is there or not. Ja Rule fell short with that.
- Always go with your instinct even if it is against the grain. Life is a bitch and so is the music industry. Even with all of these female rappers and singers coming out it is still a male dominated industry. Ashanti was damn near the only one in Murder Inc. besides Charli Baltimore (where is she by the way?). Not only that but young as hell. Irv took advantage of that. He held his power over her, at one point he actually told her multiple times no one wanted to collab with her. All this time she thought nobody wanted to work with her. Then once released artists kept telling her that Irv would not allow them to work with her. This threw me off because disconnecting her from collaborating with other artists only lessens the money that he could have in his pocket, but his ego ruled him and still do. Ashanti felt something was not right after a while. God gave everyone the power of intuition and a Black woman’s intuition is not to be played with. It is important for us to listen to it; it is there for a reason and not just with sexual relationships either. I believe if she would have listened at the first sign maybe her career would have been farther along than what it is now. But she has picked herself back up and is living her best life on her terms. That was a talent that was wasted because of Irv with his piece of shit ass was in his feelings.