Did somebody say Ashanti? Yeah, I read the comments and conveniently she is in the news. On Thursday, Ashanti was on CBS’s Early Show to talk about the 70th Anniversary of The Wizard of Oz. Later in the day she was at the Empire State Building where the picture up top was taken. How is she qualified? This April, Ashanti took on the starring role of Dorothy in the Broadway musical The Wiz, the African-American remix of Frank Baum’s classic. In the 70s, Stephanie Mills (the play) and Diana Ross (the movie) both made The Wiz a success and generally received good reviews. According to the NY Times, Ashanti is less convincing..

“Unfortunately Ashanti, making her stage debut, mostly seems like a pretty place-holder, an empty vessel in a sparkly dress.. Her voice is terrific — bright, multicolored and flexible — and her singing is certainly impressive. But she brings little conviction and less charm to the book scenes and looks a little bit lost, and not in a yearning, get-me-back-to-Kansas kind of way. Her climactic solo song, “Home,” should bring the show to a satisfying, perhaps even moving conclusion, but Ashanti’s performance is vocally accomplished yet hollow, as if she’d been given the song the day before and learned it by rote for one of the middle rounds of ‘American Idol.’ “

Ouch. I suppose it’s one man’s opinion. After all, no one has locked her out of the theater yet.

Here is Ashanti’s interview on CBS.

And her performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”