Having made a name for herself appearing on offerings for rap ‘luminaries’ like Murder Inc labelmate Ja Rule, Fat Joe, Big Pun and P Diddy, gyrating atop huge beemers in billion-dollar videos and flashing her ice at us from the upper echelons of the pop charts, Ashanti’s second album was highly anticipated in pop circles. A few million record buyers can’t be wrong, can they? Alas, in a world where pop and hip-hop is charting brave new waters, this album simply doesn’t have the right sort of flotation device.

Without her big-name associates to buoy her efforts, the album is floundering. All that time wasted on washing diamonds could have been better spent trying to piece together a much more affecting and engaging recording.

While Ashanti’s soulful voice is smooth as honey, the music itself is generic, and it’s virtually impossible to differentiate one inoffensive rambling track from the next, or for that matter, anything that J-Lo has been spewing recently.

Like Lil’ Kim, J-Lo and Mya before her, a male rapper has been drafted in, Chink Santana in this case, to spice things up and, presumably to re-establish Ashanti’s affiliation with ‘the street’ (like she needs it, being on Murder Inc). Alas, we’ve heard the combination a thousand times before, and I suspect that listeners are craving a new spin on it.

Having been spoiled by the likes of Pink, Justin Timberlake and Eminem, the average pop listener is much more discerning than their counterpart of five years ago, and something tells me that Ashanti may not have enough kick to rob anyone’s crown.

So, alas, it’s back to the drawing board. Via Harry Winston’s and Tiffany, of course.