Ashanti Does Georgetown

Ashanti does Georgetown from ieishah clelland on Vimeo.

I still don't know how I feel about Beyonce blackening up for L'Officiel's Fela tribute. Frankly, as someone who blackened up (digitally) once before, I do understand the impulse to do it for 'art'. What I can say, is that Beyonce has been moving towards Africa since the day she went solo.

First, she went islandista on us in "Baby Boy", featuring Sean Paul. Come to think of it, she was already in Africa in this video, via the Middle Eastern Belly Dance sequence. And it's not just about that single. Her whole style of movement, with the emphasis on the waistline, took on a Caribbean flavor. Vybez Kartel would pay homage to this in '08's Beyonce Wine. (If Beyonce were Jamaican, like Vybez Kartel, the issue of whether or not she bleaches her skin would be a non-issue. At the very least, a curiosity. She fair, eee? She ah bleach 'ar skin or som'm? Cho... Pass me some ackee...) And when Beyonce performed in Barcelona, "Baby Boy" segued into a not half bad cover of Sister Nancy's reggae classic, "No No No".

If B played at Caribbean on her first solo album, she went full on motherland on her second, B'Day. Remember the African dance sequence in "Deja Vu"? What was that dancing?, many thought. She look crazy!, others thought. Meanwhile, there's B, in a grass-like skirt, Josephine Baker-ing her peers right out of the game.

It's no accident that Rihanna, herself from Barbados, was one of the only songstresses to survive the slaughter.

Trace the trajectory, and it's not really a surprise, the whole blackening up and becoming African thing.

Then there's Ashanti. 'Foolish' put her in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most weeks spent at the top of chart for a female artist. She was major. Until Beyonce Josephine Baker'd her right out of the game.

Christmas night 2010. Georgetown, Guyana. I didn't know what to expect from Ashanti. What I never could have predicted, was her performing barefoot to soca music in a Guyana flag catsuit. But it happened. Got the video to prove it.

I say, if she's going to have any chance at a comeback, she should probably never take it off.