"Foolish" is a song by American R&B singer Ashanti from
her debut album. It was written by Ashanti, 7 Aurelius, M.
DeBarge and producer Irv Gotti. It uses a sample of DeBarge's
"Stay with Me" and features elements from "One More Chance
(remix)" by The Notorious B.I.G. and M.V.P by Big L.
The song was released as the album's lead single on January
29, 2002 (see 2002 in music), It spent ten weeks at number-one
on the Hot 100 and U.S.
BillboardHot R&B Songs chart. The song became
Ashanti's second number-one and third top ten on both charts.
The song was in the top ten in United Kingdom, Australian and
New Zealand.
In 2009 it was named the 19th most successful song of the
2000s, on the
BillboardHot 100 Songs of the Decade.
The filming session of the video for the single took place
during January 2002. It was directed by Irv Gotti himself. The
video grants us an insight of a relationship where the man,
played by Terrence Howard, gets involved into some criminal
acts, cheats on Ashanti, which ends up in a break-up after some
quarrel. As the song suggests, Ashanti feels that she still
loves her ex and that she just can't seem to get over him and
becomes frusturated since her heart and her mind force her to
love him and hate him at the same time. In supporting roles we
can also see Charli Baltimore, Vita, Ja Rule and Irv Gotti. The
video is set in the fashion of the movie
Goodfellas, with Ashanti in the role of Karen Hill and
Terrence Howard in the role of Henry Hill. Irv Gotti and Ja
Rule are also in a scene appearing to take the roles of Jimmy
Conway and Paulie Cicero. The video was a three-time nominee at
the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards for
Best Female Video,
Best R&B Video, and
Best New Artist.
The song was nominated at the 2003 Grammy Awards for
Best R&B Vocal Performance - Female, and Ashanti for
Best New artistand won a Soul Train Music Award for
Best R&B/Soul Single for Female
There are several Ashanti publications and releases under
the name "Foolish" and "Unfoolish" and inspired by the single
(or vice-versa). A book called
Foolish/Unfoolish - Reflections on lovecontains
Ashanti's teenage poems and diary extracts. It was followed by
an audio book with the same name defined as
A spoken word album - read by the authorreleased by
Hyperion.
European CD Single
Australian/U.S. Maxi single
UK 5" CD single
