For the past decade, Ashley Hart has made a name for herself as rapper Angel Davanport — but she also sings under a different name. On I Don’t Regret a Thing, out this week on Bandcamp and October 15 on all other platforms, Hart is known as Angelenah. The project signals a return to her love of singing, something she was raised with as a child.

“I've been singing since fourth grade,” she recalls, during a recent interview over Zoom. “I started doing musical theater. That was my jam. My mom's first memory was me singing at my uncle's wedding, dancing in the middle of the dancefloor with a microphone. I was six, I think.”

Known for her forceful delivery and rich detail, Hart as Davanport played pivotal roles as half of Big $ilky with Psalm One, one of the four members of Rapperchicks, and made cameos with legends like Tech N9ne and Gangsta Boo of Three 6 Mafia. Angelenah’s first solo material was the 2018 project, Sore But Grateful.

“After years of being Angel Davanport, I knew there was something a little bit more dramatic in me, and I feel Angelenah is that,” she mentions. “Angel Davanport was the me that was ready to just dive in, no holds barred, feisty, full of fire, and not worried about the consequences. Now I feel more mature, and I want to stick with Angelenah, since I feel like that embodies who I am these days.”

“I've always wanted to sing, but finding my voice and finding what that songstress was going to be was the challenge,” she continues. “ I wanted to give people something they hadn't heard. People hear me talking about guns and fighting, and think I have a lot of grit to me. I wanted to show something a little bit more sexy, sensual, and still rugged.” 

By scaling back on layering and stacking vocals, Angelenah’s new project does something that a lot of R&B projects don’t. When backing tracks are present — provided by the O’My’s, Budah Tye, and the Beat Plug — they help guide the songwriting and provide plenty of breathing room for her vocals to take center stage. 

“I'm baring the parts of me that hurt; that are tender and raw,” she reflects. “I hope that people hear that and it resonates — and they also want to be tender and raw. That's what resonated with me when I listened to some of my favorite artists like Cher, Christina Aguilera, and even hits like Whitney Houston’s [cover of Dolly Parton’s] ‘I'll Always Love You.’ I love songs like that, because they’re hitting me in my soul.”

Over the project’s brisk 21 minutes, a dedication to minimalism helps drive the narratives of love, lust, and healing. I Don’t Regret A Thing takes the vocal prowess of Minnie Riperton, add lyricism on par with Adina Howard and Millie Jackson, and set it up for listeners of the current generation of R&B innovators like SZA and Summer Walker. Such rawness and vulnerability came from a familiar place.

“That's from rap, it's very hip-hop of me to do,” says Angelenah. “Minimalism works for me right now because I'm still new and fresh, and learning to play with my voice in different ways. It’s also where I am right now, in my process. … I don't think that I could ever really lose the Angel Davanport part. That will drive the songs that I write now. I'm not done rapping by any means, I'm just gonna throw a melody onto it now.” 

The lead-off single, “Put it Down,” was a conscious change of pace from recent Big $ilky material, like “McNothing.” Angelenah felt it was the best way to whet listeners’ appetites for what was to come.

Making I Don’t Regret A Thing was like therapy. She connects the songs to a period when she was “sore, salty, figuring things out,” before she moved from Chicago to Minneapolis about five years ago. “I had to move to Minnesota to actually heal, grow, and find whatever I lost,” she says. “I had to find it, and I had to get it back. Minneapolis gave me that.”

Having the project come out is a validation of that journey — its title arrived at a listening session right before mastering. She played it from start to finish and then said, “I don't regret anything.” Angelenah has also sharpened her musical chops by hiring a vocal coach, and has branched out into learning production and DJing.

“It's been very challenging for me to put out music,” she says. “I had a lot of struggle in getting my music to see the light of day in many different ways. So if anything, I Don’t Regret A Thing is a culmination of me putting my best foot forward and finishing something that I feel is very solid. So my confidence and my self-esteem are sky-high right now.”