It’s one of the biggest mysteries in music and for years, fans have been scrambling to find the answer to the question surrounding who exactly provided the vocals for Ja Rule and Jennifer Lopez’s hist song, “I’m Real.” Well, Ja recently tried to clear up some of the rumors surrounding such a long-discussed topic.
Ja Rule recently stopped by Wendy Williams’ daytime talk show and one of the topics that fans have been wanting him to address for years finally came up. Wendy got straight to the point, saying to Ja, “you recently admitted that Ashanti was part of the vocals on the “I’m Real” song, I thought is was just you and J. Lo?” He responded that Wendy should talk to Irv Gotti about it, but she says she tried to reach him and didn’t get a response.
This leads Ja to attempt to explain what happened:
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“I am the writer, I wrote the record. I referenced the record, but my voice is not a great reference voice for the singer to get a reference off of, so we had [Ashanti] reference the record. Let me explain it to you. So, if I write the record, right? Somebody has to sing it, I’m not a good singer. So, I sing it because I wrote it. So, we needed to reference the record so it sounds, so she can hear the riffs and the way the riffs are supposed to be hit. I can’t hit those riffs, I can’t hit ‘em. So, [Ashanti] did it and it goes to the singer, then she sings it and that what you hear.”
Wendy then says:
“So, Ashanti mimicked the singing, you sent it to Jennifer Lopez and the word is, is that when it was mixed, they left in Ashanti.”
Ja Rule follows up with:
“It may have been. It happens. It happens in music all the time, no shade. That stuff happens all the time.
The big question comes next, when Wendy asks Ja Rule if Ashanti got paid for her reference vocals and he responded, “I don’t know…I’m not the one that paid her. Listen, you don’t usually get paid to do a reference, nobody gets paid to do a reference. If you didn’t write on the record or do any physical performing on the record, you don’t get paid.”
Well, there you have it. After almost two decades of mystery the issue seems to have been explained…somewhat.
Roommates, what are your thoughts on this?
