Always On Time by Ja Rule (featuring Ashanti)

Album: Pain is Love (2001)

Charted: 6 1

License This Song

lyrics

Songfacts®:

This tale of relationship trials and tribulations was the first hit that the then little-known Ashanti was involved with. Ja Rule had originally planned to record this as a solo song, before Murder Inc boss Irv Gotti persuaded him to collaborate with Ashanti.
This became Def Jam's top selling single.
"If you listen to the track, it had these chords that just punch you right in the face," says Ja Rule, who handpicked the tune from five instrumental tracks written by producer 7 Aurelius. Irv Gotti didn't like it, but Ja didn't have time to argue, as the track was on its way out to Brandy.
With Pain Is Love being his third album, Ja Rule was under pressure to use a big-name artist for the single, but he had other ideas. "I wanted this to be fresh and new," he told Billboard magazine, "and Ashanti was fresh and new." The success of the duet launched Ashanti's solo career through Murder Inc, starting with the smash it "Foolish."
Ashanti's first public performance was singing this with Ja Rule on Saturday Night Live.
This is the second hit duet of the year for Ja Rule, who also landed a #1 with Jennifer Lopez for "I'm Real" (and again for "Ain't It Funny" that summer). Says the rapper: "I feel I took the hip-hop duet somewhere else. It was always an R&B and rap fusion. It was the rapper doing a 16-bar verse on an R&B record or maybe an R&B person singing the chorus. I do a little harmonizing when I rap, so I took it a little further. Ashanti is on the record just as much as I am."

Comments: 1

Ira Thomas Harris from Rural Franklin County NcAlways On Time cords still hits you in the face twenty years later! If Always On Time was rereleased now some twenty years later with all the new Media Social Media and Streaming Services this song pair with Ja Rule's current current audience and new audience Always On Time would be two three or four times bigger a hit than original version!!!!

see more comments

More Songfacts:

For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)AC/DC

AC/DC's "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)" is titled after a phrase Roman gladiators said heading into battle: "We who are about to die salute you."

BabylonDavid Gray

"Babylon," in David Gray's song, refers to London, which was once known as the "modern-day Babylon."

Friends In Low PlacesGarth Brooks

"Friends In Low Places" by Garth Brooks was written by two Nashville songwriters after a meal in a local restaurant. One of them forgot his money, but said not to worry, "I have friends in low places. I know the cook."

Your SongElton John

Bernie Taupin was 17 when he wrote the lyrics to Elton John's "Your Song." Looking back, he says it's "one of the most naïve and childish lyrics in the entire repertoire of music."