Artist of the Week: Fantasia Barrino

Rising from 'a dark place,' the winner of
'American Idol' season 3 shares her rough past
in her new album 'Side Effects of You'.
Fantasia
Barrino
finally
comes out
with a new
album
after three
years, but
the road
wasn't a
smooth one. Hitting downward spiral after
getting slapped with numerous negative
publicities, she was thinking of leaving music
industry a few years ago. "I was starting to
hate what I loved - the label, the industry I
was at a place where I knew what I wanted.
And if I couldn't have it, I didn't want to do it
anymore," she admitted.
It all began when she was criticized for her
alleged diva antics, label tension, her weight
and drama during her Broadway debut in "The
Color Purple". In 2010, the R&B singer and
actress was even accused of ruining a man's
marriage.
Trying to escape from her personal and
professional issues, Fantasia took too many
sleeping pills and aspirin and overdosed in
August the same year. "My intentions weren't
to kill myself. I just wanted to get away. [I had]
so much � on me, on my mind," so she
shared.
Finding a way to put the pieces back together,
Fantasia claimed, "I think at this point I know
how to handle things in a much (more) mature
way. In a way, I don't get it much in my mind,
my mental, and let it send me into a
depression, you know, 'cause there's a lot of
things you just cannot change."
She instead decided to share her bad
experiences in her new music, such as in the
title track of her fourth album "Side Effects of
You". "I was looking for a cure to pull me
through / Tried to decide which medicine to
use / Every bottle has your name on the label,"
she sings in the song co-written by Emeli
Sande.
"I'm putting it all out there," she said,
although it's still hard for her to listen to the
emotional song. "I leave the room. At this
point I can talk about [the overdose] because I
believe God put me here now. I decided to
share that on this album."
"Reaching that point, such a dark place. I don't
want anybody to experience that dark
moment," she continued. "That was the
hardest song to record, but I knew that I had
to. If I can help somebody through that one
song then I'll do it."
Now, the winner of " American Idol" season 3
is "in a happy place." She went on claiming,
"I've found peace. I'm back to that Fantasia
that first walked onstage. I can tell you now
that my smile is genuine - and it's not just
pretend."
Her raw emotion shown in the album surely
catches the heart of her fans, as her latest
effort successfully debuted at No. 2 on
Billboard Hot 200 chart. She also got favorable
reviews from critics, with one saying she "has
released her finest album yet."