The Declaration
| The Declaration | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Ashanti | ||||
| Released | June 3, 2008 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 49:33 (U.S. standard) 52:58 (non-U.S.) |
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| Label | The Inc., Universal Motown | |||
| Producer | Ashanti, L. T. Hutton, Jermaine Dupri, Darkchild, Akon, Babyface, Channel 7, Keith Ross, Stengaard, Mario Winans, Chad Beatz (Tastemaker Music), Neff-U | |||
| Ashanti chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The Declaration | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | (52/100) |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| The Boston Globe | (unfavorable) |
| Daily News (New York) | |
| Entertainment Weekly | C+ |
| Newsday | B |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Slant Magazine |  |
| This Is Music | |
| Toronto Star | |
| USA Today | |
| Vibe | |
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 (After the Club)"—were used. This is her last album to be released on Irv Gotti's label The Inc. Records.
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.
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: (The Title Track) 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."
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Wikipedia