Toni Braxton
Toni Michele Braxton is an American singer, songwriter, actress and television personality. She has sold over 70 million records worldwide and is one of the best-selling female artists in history. Braxton has won seven Grammy Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, seven American Music Awards, and numerous other accolades. In 2011, Braxton was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In 2017, she was honored with the Legend Award at the Soul Train Music Awards.
In the late 1980s, Braxton began performing with her sisters in the R&B group the Braxtons; the group was signed to Arista Records. After attracting the attention of producers Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, she signed with their label LaFace Records as a solo artist to release her self-titled debut studio album. The album reached number one on the Billboard 200 chart, sold 10 million copies worldwide, and spawned the international hit singles "Another Sad Love Song" and "Breathe Again". Also a critical success, the album yielded Braxton three Grammy Awards, including for Best New Artist.
Braxton experienced continued success with the albums Secrets — which included the Billboard Hot 100-number one singles "You're Makin' Me High/Let It Flow" and "Un-Break My Heart" — and The Heat, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and spawned the top two single "He Wasn't Man Enough". Braxton's subsequent studio albums, Snowflakes, More Than a Woman, Libra and Pulse, were released amid contractual disputes and health issues. In 2014, Braxton and former label boss Babyface released the duet album Love, Marriage & Divorce, which won Best R&B Album at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. Further label changes saw the release of Sex & Cigarettes under Def Jam Recordings and Spell My Name under Island.
Braxton is also active in television production and presentation. She competed in the seventh season of the reality competition series Dancing with the Stars. She executive produced and starred in Braxton Family Values, a reality television series that aired on We TV from 2011 to 2020. Braxton was also an executive producer of Tamar & Vince, a spinoff reality series starring her younger sister, Tamar.
Early life
Toni Michele Braxton was born in Severn, Maryland, on October 7, 1967. Her father, Michael Conrad Braxton Sr., was a Methodist clergyman and power company worker, and her mother, Evelyn Jackson, a native of South Carolina, was a former opera singer and cosmetologist, as well as a pastor. Braxton's maternal grandfather was also a pastor. Braxton later said that her religious upbringing had given her an advantage musically, saying it gave her "a finer-tuned ear. The church pulpit is the stage. You got the congregation, that's your audience. And so we were comfortable performing".Braxton is the eldest of six siblings. She has a younger brother Michael Jr. and four younger sisters Traci Renee, Towanda Chloe, Trina Evette, and Tamar Estine. They were raised in a strict religious household, and Braxton's first performing experience was singing in her church choir.
Braxton attended Bowie State University to obtain a teaching degree, but decided to sing professionally after she was discovered by William E. Pettaway Jr., who reportedly heard her singing to herself while pumping gas.
On her appearance May 24, 2014, broadcast of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, she stated that she was not singing to herself at the gas station. Pettaway, working as an attendant at the Annapolis service station where she was refueling, recognized her from local performances and introduced himself, saying he wanted to produce her. Although skeptical, Braxton decided to, in her words, "take a chance" and accepted.
Career
1989–1995: The Braxtons, ''Toni Braxton'' and breakthrough
Braxton and her four sisters Traci, Towanda, Trina, and Tamar began performing as The Braxtons in the late 1980s and were signed to Arista Records in 1989. Their first single, "Good Life", was released in 1990. Though the song was not successful, it attracted the attention of record executive Antonio "L.A." Reid and record producer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds. Reid and Babyface recruited her to record a demo of "Love Shoulda Brought You Home", a song that they had written for Anita Baker for the soundtrack of Eddie Murphy's film, Boomerang. Baker, who was pregnant at the time, did not record the song but suggested that Braxton record it. Her recording was later included on the soundtrack along with "Give U My Heart", a duet by Braxton and Babyface. Braxton, meanwhile, was signed to Reid and Edmonds' Arista-distributed imprint, LaFace Records, and immediately began recording her solo debut album.In July 1993, LaFace released Braxton's self-titled debut album. Primarily produced by Reid, Babyface, and Daryl Simmons, it peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200 and entered the top ten of the albums chart in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The first single, "Another Sad Love Song", peaked at number seven and number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B Singles charts respectively. The album's second single, "Breathe Again", peaked in the top five of both the Hot 100 and R&B singles charts and no 2 in the UK. More singles from Toni Braxton were released in 1994, including "You Mean the World to Me", "Seven Whole Days", and "I Belong to You/How Many Ways".
Braxton's debut album won her several awards, including three Grammy Awards. She won two American Music Awards in 1994 and another one in 1995. Toni Braxton was certified 8× platinum in USA and has sales of over 10 million worldwide.
1996–1999: ''Secrets'' and financial issues
In June 1996, Braxton released her second album Secrets. Motivated "to include a little bit of everything", Braxton reteamed with Babyface, but also worked with R. Kelly, Tony Rich, and David Foster on the album, which she co-produced. A major success, it peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 and reached the top ten on most international charts. After 92 weeks in the charts, Secrets was certified 8× platinum, becoming Braxton's second straight 8 million-seller. Internationally, Secrets sold more than 15 million copies, further cementing Braxton's superstar status. The album's first single, "You're Makin' Me High", marked Braxton's first number-one hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, while follow-up "Un-Break My Heart", a ballad written and composed by Diane Warren, became the biggest hit of Braxton's career yet. It spent eleven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot 100 and enjoyed worldwide top five success.As a result, Braxton topped several of Billboards year-end charts, and won two Grammy Awards; one for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Un-Break My Heart" and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "You're Makin' Me High" as well as two American Music Awards for Favorite Female Soul/R&B Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Album. Still waiting on her financial rewards, Braxton eventually launched an unsuccessful lawsuit against Arista and LaFace Records. Soon after, she filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy. Public reaction to these events was very harsh, having been expressed most clearly in an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Braxton has appeared in two Disney Broadway shows: She made her Broadway debut as Belle in Beauty and the Beast beginning September 9, 1998, when she replaced Kim Huber. During her run in the show Alan Menken wrote and composed a new song for the musical, titled "A Change in Me", which he specially wrote and composed for Braxton, and was still being used in the musical as of late July 2014. She left the production on February 28, 1999, and was succeeded by Andrea McArdle. Her role in Beauty and the Beast marked the first time a black woman commanded the leading role of Belle on Broadway. It also marked the first time a black woman would star in a Disney musical on Broadway. In 1999, the lawsuit against LaFace Records was settled and Braxton was given back all her possessions, giving her time to record The Heat, her first album in four years.
2000–2002: ''The Heat'', ''More Than a Woman'', and acting debut
After her three-year-long dispute with LaFace and Arista had been settled, Braxton signed a new $20 million contract. In April 2000, her third studio album, The Heat was released. Braxton took a more hands-on approach, co-writing and co-producing a handful of the tracks which saw her adapting a more urban sound. It opened at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 199,000 copies sold in its first week, eventually going double platinum in the United States, while selling over 4 million copies worldwide. Additionally, the album was nominated for Best R&B Album at the 2001 Grammy Awards, while uptempo lead single "He Wasn't Man Enough", a worldwide top ten hit, won for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and was nominated for Best R&B Song.In 2001, Braxton made her movie acting debut in director Doug McHenry's comedy film Kingdom Come opposite an ensemble also starring LL Cool J, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Whoopi Goldberg. A modest box-office success, it grossed $23.4 million worldwide. The same year, Braxton recorded and released the Christmas album Snowflakes which consisted R&B–led original songs co-penned with Keri Lewis and Babyface as well as several remixes and cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. It received a mixed reception by critics, many of whom compared its nature to Braxton's other work but found the stylized production and original material too contemporary to conjure images of Christmas, and failed to reach the upper half of the Billboard 200, eventually going gold in the United States.
In 2002, while gearing up for the release of her fourth studio album, Braxton discovered she was pregnant with her second child. Knowing that she would be unable to promote the album properly, she unsuccessfully lobbied Arista Records to get the label to postpone its release until after she was to give birth. In November 2002, More Than a Woman was released. Opening to an instant commercial disappointment, the album peaked at number 13 on the US Billboard 200, but was less successful internationally. The first single "Hit the Freeway" failed to impact, resulting in lackluster sales in general and the release of no further singles. More Than a Woman was eventually certified gold in the United States and sold more than 800,000 copies worldwide.