Ashanti couldn’t be happier about her baby boy. She welcomed her first child, Kareem Kenkaide Haynes, with husband Nelly on July 18 and told Entertainment Tonight the touching meaning behind his name. “His dad named him with a lot of pride,” gushed the “Baby” singer. “We were going back and forth for a long time on his name and he was very adamant. He was like, ‘This is what I want, I love this.’” Ashanti expressed that her son was named after her father and it was actually Nelly who wanted to honor his father-in-law in that way.
“I thought it was just so amazing and so thoughtful and so sweet because Kenkaide is my dad’s name and obviously my dad has only girls, so Nelly was just like, ‘I think that would be really dope.’ This was all his idea,” she noted. She also shared that Kareem means “generous, kind, noble, bountiful and dignified.” When opening up about his birth, the 43-year-old said that her son came “a little early,” causing Nelly to “fly in last minute,” but he did make it “well before time.”
Ashanti shared, “Just having all of us in the delivery room and seeing his face for the first time, I cried. It was just so emotional and so spiritual. Kind of having a vision of this moment for so long. I always wanted children, I always wanted to get married. I didn’t know that I was going to spin the block and be with my ex from a long time ago.”
Sign Up
