It looks like Ashanti will be makin’ music with First Lady Michelle Obama…
The 32-year-old part-Dominican American singer/actress, who recently starred on Lifetime’s Army Wives, will form part of a hip-hop album from the first lady and non-profit organization Partnership for A Healthier America aimed at inspiring healthy living among our youth.
Entitled Songs for a Healthier America, the 19-track rap album due in September is part of Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, which aims to fight childhood obesity.
Along with Ashanti, the record will include tracks featuring Jordin Sparks, Run DMC, Ariana Grande and Blink-182‘s Travis Barker.
Mrs. Obama herself won’t be heard on any of the tracks but she will be making cameos in the music videos, with a total of ten clips to be created for the album, which will first be released to New York schools before being distributed to other major cities.
The first track, “Everybody“, featuring Sparks, Doug E. Fresh, Ryan Beatty, Artie Green and Dr. Mehmet Oz, was already released back in June as a free download and its music video can similarly be found online.
The positive message as well as the bouncy beat of the track, not to mention the spoken word feature from the First Lady highlighting the second year of her “Let’s Move” initiative, calling on everyone to spread the word is a fitting lead track for the well-intentioned project.
Lending some of his valuable support to the First Lady’s pet project is President Barack Obama himself, who has, in the past, made appearances and even sung publicly to help promote the program.