Throwback Thursday: "Foolish" Ashanti

Back in 2002, Ashanti was the hottest new thing on the block. After gaining notice as the hook girl on hits by Ja Rule and Fat Joe, her debut single, "Foolish," spent 10 weeks at the top of the Hot 100, leading to massive sales of her self-titled album and a somewhat controversial victory as Entertainer of the Year at the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. Within three years, her star had pretty much burned out, and looking back now, it's sort of hard to figure out what all the fuss was about. Despite a great piano sample from DeBarge's "Stay With Me," which still makes for an instantly recognizable hook, "Foolish" is a remarkably tame song, filled with little of the longing and frustration that the lyrics suggest. Though the tempered production certainly doesn't help matters, much of the blame lies with Ashanti herself, whose wispy vocals are fairly passionless in their declarations of love and torment. "Foolish" is certainly not bad, but it's not much to inspire a nation's fervor either. Was this really one of the biggest songs of the decade? And was Ashanti really once the future of music? It seems odd, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20. B

10 years ago this week, "Foolish" was the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.