Ashanthi De Alwis ( Sinhala:අශාන්ති ද අල්විස්), known simply as Ashanthi, is a Sri Lankan

rapper Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

, singer and songwriter. She is the only Sri Lankan female

who signed with international record labels

Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

and

Universal Music Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, Dutch law. UMG's cor ...

in 2006. She began her career as a rapper with BnS, and continued that role after achieving solo success.

Career

Ashanthi's first major label album was as half of the duo Ashanthi n' Ranidu, with the album ''Oba Magemai'' released in 2002 through M Entertainments. Her debut solo album ''Sandawathuren'' was released in 2006. This was the first hip hop solo album to be released by a Sri Lankan female. Her general style of music is ethnic hip hop with massive market appeal. ''Sandawathuren'' was sung in Sinhala, with the exception of two English songs.
Ashanthi has toured internationally in countries throughout Europe, North America,

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

and Asia. In 2008,

Dialog Dialog is an online information service owned by ProQuest, who acquired it from Thomson Reuters in mid-2008. Dialog was one of the predecessors of the World Wide Web as a provider of information, though not in form. The earliest form of the Dial ...

signed up Ashanthi to be a

brand ambassador A brand ambassador (sometimes also called a corporate ambassador) is a person engaged by an organization or company to represent its brand in a positive light, helping to increase brand awareness and sales. The brand ambassador is meant to embod ...

for their pre-paid brand KIT. At the 2013 Derana Music Video Awards, Ashanthi won the award for 'Best Hip Hop Video' for ''Alawanthiyak.'' She also recorded the 11th anniversary jingles for Y FM,

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

in November 2016. From 2020 onwards she joined the widely popular The Voice teens (Sri Lanka) as a coach.

2013–present: "Rock the World" and international recognition

Ashanthi released her first English Language Album 'Rock the World' in August 2013, aiming for an international market. The lead single off the album was 'Let's Give Peace a Chance', which was also recorded in Sinhala with additional vocals by

Benny Dayal Benny Dayal (born 13 May 1984) is an Indian playback singer. He is a prominent singer in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi and more languages films. He has sung more than 3500 songs in 19+ Indian languages. ...

Television Shows

Discography

Albums

*''Oba Magemai'' (with Ranidu),

, 2002 *''Sandawathuren,''

, 2006 *''Rock the World,''

, 2013 *''Daas Panawa,''

, 2014

References

External links

Ashanthi's Official Websitebnsmusic.comSunday Leader article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alwis, Ashanthi De Sri Lankan music Sinhalese musicians Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Colombo