UrbanBridgez.com:
After four years away from the music game, multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning R&B/pop singer, songwriter, and actress Brandy has come roaring back with the fearless and inspired TWO ELEVEN — a thoroughly modern R&B album that Rolling Stone has called “Brandy at her most realized: romantically shaky, vocally sharp, and musically sound.” Billboard has hailed it as a “strong return to Brandy’s multi-layered impassioned vocals.” With its unforgettable melodies, glorious harmonies, edgy beats, and Brandy’s sultry voice front-and-center, TWO ELEVEN sounds like an artist reborn. “It’s an honest album,” she says. “It’s relatable. It’s sexy and vulnerable. I really let my true self come through on every song. It has so many different colors, but at the same time, it represents the artist I am now.”
The Mississippi-born daughter of a gospel singer father, Brandy became one of the most successful multi-media stars of the ’90s, thanks to her constant presence on both the pop and R&B charts, as well as star turns on the hit sitcom Moesha and the classic made-for-TV movie phenomenon Cinderella, which attracted more than 60 million viewers and broke new ground with its multi-cultural cast. Since emerging with her 3x-platinum self-titled debut album in 1994 (released when Brandy was 15), this trail-blazing pioneer has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide (including the 5x-platinum selling Never Say Never) and is ranked one of the best-selling female artists in American music history by the RIAA. She has earned scores of awards, including a Grammy, an AMA, two Soul Train Music Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, three Billboard Awards, four MTV Awards, six Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards, two Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, and three BMI Awards. Brandy also currently stars on BET’s top-rated scripted series The Game and will appear in Tyler Perry’s upcoming film The Marriage Counselor.
Yet with all of her success, Brandy wasn’t sure she’d ever make music again after the release of her last album Human in 2008. “I didn’t really know what type of music I wanted to do or if anyone would even give me the opportunity,” she says candidly. “You start to doubt whether this is still the path that you’re supposed to be on.”
That struggle is what makes Brandy’s return with TWO ELEVEN all the more triumphant. “It definitely feels like a comeback to me because I know I’ve been gone,” she says. “The fans will say, ‘You never left.’ No, I left. I’ve been gone. I’ve been down. I’ve struggled. I’ve failed. I’ve been through so much, so just making this album is a comeback for me.”
Brandy was coaxed into recording again after meeting Breyon Prescott — the CEO of Chameleon Entertainment whose A&R and production credits include Jamie Foxx, Angie Stone, and Kanye West — in May 2010 after she performed an intimate concert at the Key Club in West Hollywood, belting out her own hits like “Almost Doesn’t Count” as well as a smoldering cover of Etta James’ “At Last.” “Breyon told me I needed to get back to my R&B roots, but needed a fresh, new sound,” Brandy recalls. “He said my core fans really wanted an R&B album from me and I didn’t give them that the last time. So that became the center of what we were trying to accomplish with this album. Breyon has an incredible ear for music. He was able to bring together all these amazing people to help me achieve that vision.”
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