The Declaration is the fourth studio album by American R&B/pop singer Ashanti. It was released on June 3, 2008. The album includes the single "The Way That I Love You". Ashanti said during her June 2 appearance on the television program 106 & Park that she recorded fifty-two tracks for the album, of which fifteen—including the bonus tracks "Why" and "Hey Baby "—were used. This is her last album to be released on Irv Gotti's label The Inc. Records.
Singles
"The Way That I Love You" was referred to as the real "first single" in press material and media reports. It was released in February 2008 to Urban radio. It was released to digital retailers in March 2008 and to Rhythmic radio in April 2008. It reached number two on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number thirty-seven on the BillboardHot 100, becoming Ashanti's first song to reach the top forty since "Only U" in 2004.
"Good Good" was released to urban radio stations on July 16, 2008. The song contains elements of Elton John's 1974 single "Bennie and the Jets", and has the same melody arrangement as Michael Jackson's "The Girl Is Mine".
Other Songs
In mid-2007, MTV News reported that the first single from The Declaration was "Switch", which was produced by Shy Carter and released digitally in the United States on July 24, 2007. It was later reported that "Switch" will not be included on the album's track listing, and that the first single would be "Hey Baby ".
"Hey Baby " was released to radio and digital outlets on October 16, 2007. The music video premiered in September 2007. The song, which does not appear on the U.S. editions of the album, peaked at number eighty-seven on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
"Body On Me" was recorded not only for Ashanti's The Declaration, but also for Nelly's fifth studio album Brass Knuckles. The track is produced by Akon and Giorgio Tuinfort. It went to number one on Billboard's Hot Videoclip Tracks chart in its first week, becoming the first number one single from Nelly's album.
Other information
Ashanti performed the song, "Shine", at the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as well as on FOX News in December. "Shine" was also played near the end in one of the televised previews for Will Smith's December 2008 movie, Seven Pounds. The back insert for the physical CD release of the album has the runtimes misprinted, with some times being up to almost a minute under or over the song's actual run time.
Critical reception
The Declaration received generally mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 52, based on 11 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Dan Gennoe of Yahoo! Music UK was impressed saying that the album may be " The best album of Ashanti's career," but that it may also be her most "overlooked." Shanel Odum of Vibe gave a mixed review to the album saying that "More than half of the album is lukewarm," but also said: is the album's "Diamond in the rough." Christian Hoard also had a mixed review to the album stating: "This season, while R&B fans spin albums by Mariah, Usher and Janet, Ashanti needs more pizazz to compete."
Chart performance
The album debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200, selling 86,000 copies its first week. As of February, 2014 the album has sold 297,000 copies in U.S.
