Ashanti is heading back to Australia and New Zealand this November, bringing two decades of R&B history, club anthems and early-2000s hits with her on the newly announced Rock Wit U Tour.
Fresh from a successful UK arena run alongside Sean Paul, Ashanti’s return is a reminder of how deeply her music remains woven into pop culture’s bloodstream. Few artists defined the sound of early-2000s R&B quite like Ashanti, whose 2002 self-titled debut Ashanti exploded onto the charts and turned her into one of the defining voices of the era almost overnight.
The numbers alone still feel absurd. The album debuted at number one on both the Billboard 200 and Billboard R&B charts while becoming the fastest-selling debut album by a female artist at the time. Its lead single Foolish became unavoidable, drifting out of car stereos, clubs and shopping centre speakers with such frequency that it practically embedded itself into the DNA of the decade.
But Ashanti’s influence stretched far beyond her solo work. At the height of the Murder Inc. era, her voice became omnipresent across hip-hop and R&B radio, appearing on era-defining collaborations with Ja Rule and Fat Joe including Always on Time and What’s Luv?. In 2002, she became the first female artist to simultaneously occupy the top two positions on the Billboard Hot 100, a statistic that still captures just how completely she dominated the moment.
Since then, Ashanti has steadily expanded beyond music, building a parallel career across film, television, publishing and activism while maintaining her status as an R&B institution. She has sold more than 30 million records worldwide, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2022 and continued using her platform to support youth organisations and community initiatives across the United States.
ASHANTI ‘ROCK WIT U’ AUSTRALIAN / NEW ZEALAND TOUR DATES
Pre-sales from 1:00pm Local Wednesday 3 June
General sales from 1:00pm Local Thursday 4 June
Tickets via www.destroyalllines.com
MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER Riverside Theatre PERTH
WEDNESDAY 11 NOVEMBER Margaret Court Arena MELBOURNE
FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER TikTok Arena (ICC) SYDNEY
SATURDAY 14 NOVEMBER Fortitude Music Hall BRISBANE
MONDAY 16 NOVEMBER Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre AUCKLAND
