Del.icio.usBrandy
Fact Sheet
| Occupation | Singer |
| Musical genre: | R&B |
| Birthday | 11 February 1979 (31) |
| Sign | Aquarius |
| Birthplace | USA |
Norwood's father was a pastor, and by the age of two, she was singing at his church. Brandy became a fan of Whitney Houston, and she told her father that she wanted to be a singer, like Houston. At the age of four, the Norwoods moved to California, where Brandy began her artistic career singing at talent shows in 1990. At 11, she met a record producer who took her to various record companies and led her to backup singing jobs with two groups: Norment and the more successful Immature.
Although she eventually went on to become a successful actress, Brandy is best known for her singing career. When she was 14, she was able to land a record deal, with Atlantic Records, and in late 1994 her debut album, Brandy, was released, reaching gold status in less than two months, and eventually triple platinum status. The album contained the popular singles, "Best Friend," "Brokenhearted," "Baby," and "I Wanna Be Down" and made her an MTV star throughout 1995 and into early 1996.
In 1996, she also released a duet with Lenny Kravitz and a video with Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men, for their single "Brokehearted". Towards the end of that year, she contributed a song to the Waiting To Exhale soundtrack, called "Sittin' Up In My Room". It became a huge hit in early 1996, fueled by a popular rap remix that featured LL Cool J.
Awards started to come soon after. In the fall of 1995 she attended the Billboard Music Awards, where she was nominated but won nothing. Her next award show, the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards brought her better luck. She won the "Best Song From A Movie" award for "Sittin' Up In My Room". She was nominated for a 1996 "Best New Artist" Grammy Award; in 1996, she won a NAACP Image Award, as well as a Soul Train Award, both in the Best New Artist category.
That same year, Brandy teamed up with Tamia, Chaka Khan, and Gladys Knight, for the single "Missing You," off of the Set It Off soundtrack. Even with the superstar lineup, it was Brandy's least successful single yet, but was still a moderate R&B hit, and peaked in the top 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.
In 1998, Brandy recorded a duet with Monica, "The Boy Is Mine". It hit huge that summer, becoming the biggest single of that year and winning the "Best Rhythm and Blues Performance by a Duo/Duet" award at the Grammys in 1999.
In late 1998, Brandy released her second album, after "The Boy Is Mine," its first single, had spent eleven weeks on top of the Hot 100 chart that summer. The album was also a number one smash on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, eventually becoming multi-platinum. It was nominated for a Rhythm and Blues Award and a Grammy Award, both as "Best Album Of The Year", in 1999. In the fall of 1998, Brandy also co-hosted the American Music Awards, where she was nominated for Favorite Female Artist Of The Year in both their Rock & Pop and Soul categories.
Never Say Never's other singles, "Top Of The World," a duet with rapper Mase; "Almost Doesn't Count;" and "U Don't Know Me (Like U Used To)," which had two versions of its music video: a hip hop remix version that featured rappers Da Brat and Shaunta and the album version; were more minor hits in late 1998 and through 1999. The album's third single, "Have You Ever," managed to hit number one on the Hot 100 and also became an R&B hit in early 1999, but, to date, is not as popularly remembered as "The Boy Is Mine".
Brandy's third album, Full Moon was released in March of 2002 and spawned the hits "What About Us" and "Full Moon," whose video featured a five-month-pregnant Brandy and whose lyrics explained how Brandy felt when she first saw her Robert Smith at a party.
Her fourth album was released on June 22, 2004. The first single from that album, "Talk About Our Love", was produced by and features rapping by Kanye West and was released in April 2004. It is currently flying up the charts, matching the success achieved by all of Brandy's previous album's lead singles and a majority of her singles overall.
Brandy has also tried her hand at acting. She starred in a couple of television shows in the mid-1990s, including the popular Moesha in which she played the lead character, a rambunctious young teen. Later, in 1997, she played the title character in Rodger And Hammerstein's television version of Cinderella (see fan site (http://www.foreverbrandy.com)). Other credits include a small role in Arachnophobia, 1996; a minor part in Demolition Man; a television movie with Diana Ross called Double Platinum; and one of the main characters in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.
She went on to marry Smith. Together they have a daughter, Sy'rai, who was born in the summer of 2003.