The distinctive, sultry vocals of seven-time Grammy Award®-winning recording artist Toni Braxton, singer, songwriter, record producer, and philanthropist, have been celebrated internationally ever since she was first introduced to the world by Babyface and L.A. Reid in 1992. With such timeless hits such as “Love Shoulda Brought You Home,” “Another Sad Love Song,” “Breathe Again,” “Seven Whole Days,” “Un-Break My Heart,” and “He Wasn’t Man Enough,” few artists ever ascend to the rarefied heights of “legend,” “icon,” “songstress,” and “diva.”
Ever since her career began, Toni has always had a huge LGBTQ following. “I have a very androgynous look,” she says when asked about her appeal. “Don’t get me wrong, I think of myself as an attractive woman, but it’s in a boyish way. However, I’m very comfortable with it and that makes it very easy to emulate Toni Braxton on both sides. Over the years I think that might be one of the reasons my gay and lesbian fans have connected with me. I am who I am. I’m an androgynous artist and I’m comfortable in my own skin.”
All of which brings to mind one more word that’s in keeping with Braxton’s career then and now: game-changer. And never more so than with Def Jam’s release last March of the artist’s ninth studio album, Sex & Cigarettes. It’s Braxton’s first studio album since Love, Marriage & Divorce, her 2014 Grammy-winning collaboration with Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, and her first solo album in nearly a decade.
“I never imagined that 25 years later I’d have done all the things I’ve accomplished,” says Braxton. “But I knew I would be singing. For whatever reason, music has always given me the strength to get up—even when I didn’t want to.” Indeed, it’s a franker, creatively adventurous and no-holds barred Braxton that greets listeners on Sex & Cigarettes, especially on its provocative title track.
“I heard the track and loved the title, which makes you wonder,” notes Braxton, who co-wrote the aching ballad. “It’s basically a song about the movement of infidelity, the slow walk of it and how your heart feels when you have to admit this is happening.”
Of the mid-tempo song “Long as I Live,” which reached the top 10 on Billboard’s R&B Songs chart, Braxton says, “I’m stuck on love and the message of ‘as long as I live, I’ll never get over you getting over me.’”
The album earned Braxton three Grammy Award® nominations: Best R&B Album, Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for the single “Long as I Live.”
Braxton’s ‘As Long As I Live’ tour hit the road in January in Columbia, South Carolina, and finished March 3 in Los Angeles.
The tight, eight-track Sex & Cigarettes also includes the noteworthy “FOH,” text shorthand for “get the f#@k outta here,” and the emotional slow gem “My Heart.” The latter pairs Braxton with Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Colbie Caillat, who also co-wrote the song with Braxton and Babyface. A nod to classic ‘90s Braxton, the song is also available in Spanish.
Of working with Caillat for the first time, Braxton compares their vocal pairing to peanut butter and jelly. “My voice is thick and rich like peanut butter,” she explains, “while Colbie’s is light and sweet like jelly. The timber in her top range is so angelic.”
Braxton’s own mesmerizing voice remains the one constant throughout Sex & Cigarettes—the same sultry and smoky vocals that immediately turned heads in 1992. That’s when listeners first became aware of the newcomer who appeared out of nowhere on the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy box office smash Boomerang. Helmed by songwriter/producers and LaFace Records founders Babyface and Antonio “L.A.” Reid, the soundtrack featured Braxton on two songs: “Give You My Heart,” a duet with Babyface, and “Love Shoulda Brought You Home.”
That set the stage for Braxton’s 1993 breakthrough with her self-titled debut album that’s now 8x platinum. The project also garnered the singer the first three of her seven Grammy Awards, including best new artist. Braxton, who began singing professionally in the ‘80s with her three sisters as The Braxtons, has since banked an enviable number of career-defining moments. Between 1996 and 2010, she released six more solo albums (Secrets, The Heat, Snowflakes, More Than a Woman, Libra, and Pulse) and charted a string of hits (including “You Mean the World to Me,” “You’re Makin’ Me High,” and “I Love Me Some Him”/ “I Don’t Want To”) before teaming with Babyface 2014 for the critically acclaimed duets album that won her a seventh Grammy for Best R&B Album.
Along the way, Braxton reinvented her game as she effortlessly segued into a theatrical acting career in 1998 as Belle in Beauty and the Beast. That barrier-breaking portrayal—the first black woman to play a leading role in a Disney Broadway production— led to a stint in a second Disney Broadway musical, Aida, and later a special guest star engagement with another Broadway musical, After Midnight.
Since then, Braxton has starred in three TV films for Lifetime including Twist of Faith, Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart (adapted from her same-titled best-selling memoir) and, most recently, Faith Under Fire: the Antoinette Tuff Story. Her fourth movie Every Day Is Christmas, which premieres November 24.
In between, she and her three sisters have become popular reality tv stars via WE TV’s flagship series Braxton Family Values, now in its sixth season.
After collapsing backstage at a 2008 performance in Las Vegas, doctors diagnosed her with lupus—a chronic autoimmune disease-causing widespread inflammation and joint pain among other unpleasant symptoms. This past September, Toni joined forces with Uncle Bud’s, the trusted collection of natural, hempinfused products. The hemp-healthy brand specializes in skin care, personal care and pain relief products, making them an essential part of her everyday routine.
While Braxton was raised in a strict, religious household with a father who was a clergyman, she is proud of raising her two sons Denim and Diezel knowing that being different is okay. “There’s one little kid in one of my son’s classes and my son said, ‘Mommy, he acts like a girl. Will I act like a girl?’ I’m like, ‘It’s not that he acts like a girl; he acts like himself. It’s not something you can become. You’re born a way, and it’s OK because people are born different ways.’”
“I teach them that there’s nothing wrong with that. Kids are different nowadays. They aren’t close-minded like my parents’ generation was or how I was initially taught to be.”
She devotes time as a spokesperson for Lupus L.A. and Austism Speaks, the latter on behalf of Diezel who is living with autism.
Over the course of her career, Toni has sold over 67 million records, including 41 million albums worldwide, won seven Grammy Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, and seven American Music Awards, among numerous other accolades. After all these years, she’s still in love with music and the possibilities it affords. “There have been moments when I felt defeated; felt I let myself down,” she says. “Even if I fail, music gives me enough strength to try something different. I’ve come full circle—yet there are still so many things to do.”
Toni Braxton will perform at Pride Rocks PGH on Saturday, June 8 2020. Tickets are here.
