Ashanti has announced a new partnership with the woman-owned Web3 company EQ Exchange.
The Chapter II artist, who last year detailed her decision to re-record her self-titled debut album, unveiled her latest endeavor at SXSW in Austin this week. According to a press release, the partnership will make the singer “the first Black female artist to be a co-founder of a Web3 company.”
Ashanti, the singer’s 2002 debut, will mark its 20th anniversary next month. The EQ Exchange partnership, meanwhile, is said to include the release of special “creative experiences” and NFTs, all of which will be exclusive to the Janice Taylor-founded platform.
“It’s so important to me to get the message out that artists should own their intellectual property,” Ashanti said of her work with Taylor and the EQ Exchange team. “By empowering myself through new technology, I’m trying to help other women avoid going through the things that I’ve been through. The future belongs to those who take control and make it their own.”
EQ Exchange is slated for an official launch on March 25. In a video statement shared back in January, Taylor detailed some of her goals for the tech company.
“If you’re a woman, if you’re a person of color, if you come from a diverse group anywhere in the world and the financial system has not benefited you, you need to come here and we can all learn together,” Taylor said at the time. In a statement shared this week, the longtime tech figure praised Ashanti as an artist’s who’s “paving the way for the next generation.”
