Concrete Rose is the fourth studio album by American singer Ashanti, released on December 14, 2004, by The Inc. Records and Def Jam Recordings. In addition to working with frequent collaborators Irv Gotti, Chink Santana, and 7 Aurelius, Ashanti also enlisted new collaborators Malcolm Flythe, Jimi Kendrix, and Demi-Doc, to assist. The album features guest appearances from rappers T.I., Ja Rule, and Lloyd.
The album debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200 in the United States, with first-week sales of 254,000 units. Outside the United States, the album was less successful, with its strongest ranking being in the top 20 in Japan and the top 30 of the UK Albums Chart. Critical reception to the project was mixed, with most deeming the album unoriginal. Nonetheless, the album did receive a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and gained gold status in Japan and the United Kingdom.
Concrete Rose was preceded by lead single "Only U", which received positive reviews and reached the top-twenty in several countries. The album and its promotion was vastly overshadowed by the legal troubles that faced The Inc. and Gotti, who was arrested on money laundering charges only a month after Concrete Roses release. As a result, Def Jam severed ties with The Inc. in May 2005, and refused to promote the album's second single "Don't Let Them", which only charted moderately in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Background
Following the success of her sophomore studio album Chapter II, Ashanti confirmed in November 2003 that she had begun planning her third studio album, due to be out in mid-2004. In February 2004, Ashanti said the album had "a new sound, a new flavor", and said she wanted "to touch on more topics that I didn't touch on with the first and the second record." She also confirmed that she had already recorded three songs for the album. By July, Ashanti confirmed she had already finished the record, and planned its release for November.
The album's title was inspired by The Rose That Grew from Concrete, a poetry collection of poetry written between 1989 and 1991 by Tupac Shakur. Ashanti explained that Concrete Rose serves as a metaphor for blending musical styles: when people think of hip-hop, they often imagine something gritty, raw, and "like concrete," while R&B suggests something smooth, sensual, and soft, like a rose. Because her music combines both hip-hop and R&B, she felt the title Concrete Rose captured that balance. The song, released on October 26, 2004, reached the top ten of several countries, including Ireland (#4), Japan (#), and the United Kingdom (#2); the song also reached the top twenty in Germany (#12), New Zealand (#14), Switzerland (#12), and the United States (#13). In November, Murder Inc. changed its name to The Inc., in an attempt to distance the company from its several controversies. Between November 2004 and January 2005, Gotti, McGriff, and several employees and associates of The Inc. were arrested on charges of money laundering, racketeering, and murder, regarding to the killing of rapper E-Money Bags. In April 2005, Ashanti chose "Don't Let Them" to be the second single from the album. The single failed to chart in the United States; however, charted moderately well in Ireland (#41) and the United Kingdom (#38).
|rev1 = AllMusic
|rev1score =
|rev2 = Blender
|rev2score =
|rev3 = Entertainment Weekly
|rev3score = C−
|rev4 = The Guardian
|rev4score =
|rev5 = Los Angeles Times
|rev5score =
| rev6 = Now
| rev6score =
|rev7 = PopMatters
|rev7score = 5/10
|rev8 = Rolling Stone
|rev8score =
|rev9 = Slant Magazine
|rev9score =
|rev10 = USA Today
|rev10score =
Concrete Rose received 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 47, based on 10 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average" reviews.
Hattie Collins, writing for The Guardian, found that "Ashanti doesn't stray from the R&B rulebook that has so far seen her sell some 7m albums in the US alone – namely a hip-hop backdrop of hard-knock beats tempered by a soul-lite vocal [...] A lack of originality and too much filler mark Ashanti more as a pedestrian than the princess she purports to be." On the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart the album debuted at number two where it spent a total of 28 consecutive weeks on the chart. By November 2005, the album had sold over 1 million copies, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
Elsewhere, Concrete Rose debuted or peaked at number 16 in Japan,
|89
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)
|13
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
|65
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Japanese Albums (Oricon)
| style="text-align:center;"|16
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"|Taiwanese Albums (Five Music)
| 18
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align:center;"
|+ Year-end chart performance for Concrete Rose
|-
! scope="col"| Chart (2005)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard 200
| 76
|-
!scope="row"|US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)
| 28
|}