'What’s Luv': Clueless Ashanti almost got replaced by J.Lo.

More interesting revelations has surfaced from Ashanti's Instagram Live chat with Fat Joe. Apparently, he told Ashanti that Irv Gotti and Ja Rule wanted to take her off 'What’s Luv' and replace her with Jennifer Lopez instead to make it “for the Latinos.” Ashanti never knew!

Fat Joe stood his ground and kept her on the song which was a better choice. See how shady the music industry was in those days? It makes a lot of sense as J.Lo was the bigger artist in 2001. This was also during that same time period when Sony (or more specifically, Tommy Mottola) was taking sounds and collaborations from Mariah Carey and giving them to J.Lo. Ashanti had some talent but despite J.Lo's lack of talent, she had the marketability.

Ashanti's pen game helped to launch Jen's career, and she found herself watching on the sidelines as Jen sang her songs with HER vocals still on the record. Jen was this new debuting pop sensation just starting out in her music career. The hype machine (prior to her break-out role with 'Selena' and relationship with Sean Combs) sparked massive interest. It explains why Ja Rule was more invested in J.Lo’s career than Ashanti’s (Tommy Motola too.)

Ashanti still went on to have a very successful and lucrative career. She was credited as a background vocalist/songwriter, and she had other large hits of her own. Irv and Ja Rule continuously used Ashanti to build J.Lo up without giving her the proper respect and that simply was NOT okay.