At the 46th Annual Grammy Awards, it earned Ashanti three nominations for Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best R&B Song. Chapter II was eventually certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in August 2003 and gained gold status in Japan and the United Kingdom. It also reached the top ten in Canada, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Upon its release, the album debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart with first-week sales of 326,000 units. They are the secret ingredients that make Chapter II good romantic mood music for the summer. The songs have about as much personality as Ashanti's voice, but that actually is a point in its favor, since it keeps everything on an even keel and makes Gotti and Santana's stylish production the star. She's not enough of a singer to really belt out the tunes and depart from the melodies with showy runs that are all about her, so she just sings the material straight, which is quite refreshing. The key is that the production is seductive, whether it's on the actual ballads or the bright, sunny dance numbers, and that Ashanti's crooning fits right in without ever drawing attention to herself. This explains why Irv Gotti used her as the diva for his Murder Inc empire he's also savvy enough of a producer (along with his colleague Chink Santana) to keep Chapter II entertaining - more entertaining than her debut, actually - all the way through. That lack of personality, incidentally, makes her a good vocal foil for rappers, since she never overshadows them. She sings well and sounds good on modern R&B tracks, fitting into the fabric of the production more than delivering the song. She has a sweet, appealing voice that has no defining characteristics - she doesn't have the dizzying range of Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston, the sexiness of Janet Jackson, the riskiness of Aaliyah, the elegant smarts of Alicia Keys, the sheer ambition of Knowles, or, needless to say, the hell-bent skankiness of Christina Aguilera.

On her first album, she was a streamlined, diva-esque spin on Alicia Keys on her second, she was styled like Beyoncé Knowles, the Destiny's Child leader who had released her solo debut a week before Chapter II. The pictures on Ashanti's album covers mean something - not just because she's gorgeous, but because they signal in which musical direction she's heading.

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