Singer Ashanti pulled out of a scheduled concert in South Africa over the weekend after her cousin was killed by a 17-year-old drunk driver.

Quinshae Snead was on her way to Ashanti's hotel to pick up something for the Grammy award-winning singer before her Saturday concert when the accident occurred.

According to police, the 20-year-old was a passenger in a car that was rear-ended.

Snead was flung from the car as it rolled over and thrown into the path of another car in the opposite lane.
The 17-year-old suspect was driving without a license and had stolen his mother's car, according to Johannesburg metro police spokesman Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar.

The teenager was arrested for drunken driving and hospitalized.

The driver of the car Snead was in was also injured and taken to hospital.

Ashanti will escort her cousin's body back to the U.S.

Executives at Ashanti's record label have relented to pressure from civil rights leaders over a controversial news report on her Web site, which has been removed from the Internet.

The Web site, made to promote her new single "The Way That I Love You," greeted visitors with a news report about a fake murder spree.

The site's news report, which users can personalize by selecting a "weapon of choice" and "victim," claims to be linked to Ashanti's revenge-themed music video for the single, in which the singer plays a woman who stabs her cheating boyfriend to death.

But the report caused concern among parents and religious heads, and dozens gathered outside the Los Angeles offices of her label Universal/Motown on Tuesday to protest the site's content and demand it be taken down.

And their efforts have proved a success. The whole campaign has been pulled and visitors are being redirected to her official, non-offensive site, reports MTV.com.

A statement released by Universal/Motown bosses reads: "Following discussions with Ashanti, we have jointly decided to remove the TheWayThatILoveYou.com Web site that hosts the Gotchagram (fake report).

"Ashanti and her music have always been about self-empowerment and addressing the issues that are most meaningful to her. We stand by our artist and her creative choices."

R&B star Ashanti has hinted she will marry her rapper lover Nelly in 2009.

Just four months after the couple went public with its four-year romance, the singer has confessed she is planning to walk down the aisle with Nelly.

When asked if wedding bells were on the horizon for her, the "Happy" hit maker tells Us Weekly, "Absolutely. It's in the cards for me. I believe that I have a couple more things I need to do before that happens."

But Ashanti urges fans not to believe all the gossip that's written about her and Nelly, despite the media correctly predicting their relationship, years before they admitted it to the world.

She adds, "I should have had six or seven kids, been married three times and secretly engaged now. But none of it's true."