- What do Rihanna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have in common?
A deep admiration for Brandy Norwood.
She's been called your favorite singer's, favorite singer.
The artist known as the "Vocal Bible", is both a Grammy winner and television star.
Brandy has had many highs in her career and was the "It" girl in the '90s and early 2000s.
But even still, Brandy's vocal talent and innovation are not recognized enough.
So we are gonna talk about it.
(people talking simultaneously) Brandy was only 14 years old when she recorded her first single, "I Wanna Be Down".
The minimal arrangement combined with her impressive vocal chops, won over the hearts of R&B and pop listeners alike.
("I Wanna Be Down" starting) What do you think made Brandy stand out early in her career?
What do you think made her pop?
- So I think there is this very polished look that was super intentional, in this innocence, that made her very loving.
So that worked with her tone.
Brandy, it's only one tone.
- Well, you know it out of a thousand voices.
- She is just, she's a quiet storm.
- But Brandy didn't reach that level of success overnight.
Born in 1979, she spent most of her childhood in Carson, California.
Brandy's father was a a gospel singer and a minister of music.
- Yes, that's right.
Brandy got her musical foundation in the church.
She even started singing in the church choir at the age of two.
Brandy's life was changed after seeing Whitney Houston on TV for the first time.
She remembers telling her mom, "I wanna be as big as Whitney Houston."
By the time she was 12 years old, she was already singing backup for the teen R&B group, Immature.
And it took her only a year or two to land her own record deal with Atlantic.
- It's important to remember that the musical landscape of the 1980s looked nothing like we're used to today.
Labels struggled to find mainstream success with young black women stars.
There were a few artists who let off their mark like Tracy Spencer, Penny Ford, and Janet Jackson.
But even they struggled to break out of the R&B charts and cross over to pop.
- Between white artists infusing pop with R&B elements and black artists getting closer to mainstream than ever before, Brandy had a real shot at becoming a superstar.
And Brandy did become a superstar.
In 1997, she starred in Cinderella, alongside her hero, Whitney Houston.
She got her own TV show, Moesha, sold Barbie dolls, and even cut a deal with CoverGirl.
- So how did Brandi grow into a heavy weight?
And what makes her voice so special?
It all starts with her greatest influence, Whitney Houston.
You can hear the Whitney influence in her debut album with songs like "Baby", ("Baby" starting) - or "Broken Hearted".
("Broken Hearted" starting) - I feel like she was able to use Whitney Houston as kind of her launching pad into being a lot more inventive and a lot more thoughtful and, okay, where else can I go, musically?
- In what ways do you hear that Whitney influence in her music?
- You know, if you, if you really go back and you listen to a lot of her ballads, Broken All of that's Whitney.
If you listen to that and you put it side by side with I believe in you and me it's the same vocal style.
- Yeah.
And that, my favorite one is the one it's the one that's like, Let me live just so I can sing for you, sounds like Brandy - Yeah.
You know, it sounds like, if Whitney were still making music, something that she would be doing.
- Exactly.
- [Male Narrator] Collaborating with acclaimed musicians like Rodney Jerkins, and late vocal producer, LaShawn Daniels, Brandy implemented a vocal style that felt effortless to the listener.
("The Boy is Mine" starting) - Brandy's vocal agility, fast vibrato, and crystal clear runs soon became her trademark.
Rather than testing the limits of her belting power and vocal range, Brandy focuses on her mid-register with great control.
("Long Distance" starting) - [Woman Narrator] Taking inspiration from jazz singers, she often utilizes the mixed voice approach, by mixing her chest voice and her head voice.
She brings an airy and buttery quality to her singing.
("Should I Go" starting) - [Male Narrator] Perhaps this is one of the reasons why her voice still sounds as flexible as ever today.
Even when she belts, she does so with care.
She knows exactly how long to sustain a note and how soon to descend off of it.
When you look at that picture, la, so, la.
You know?
- That's fire, that's fire.
- Her use of tensions and knowing how to like, use an approach note, you know, and then like a suspension.
So, and later years "Full Moon", "Full Moon" she literally, (singing notes) While the chord is just doing all the things!
(narrator singing) (singing in unison) The woman is singing down.
- Like many R&B singers, Brandy is also a fan of adlibs.
She often adds to the story of each song by inserting new melodic layers to top off the main theme.
("Bordline" starting) - Every element feels intentional and it intensifies the emotional impact on the listener.
Grammy award winning gospel singer songwriter, Erica Campbell said it best, "It's a perfect marriage of vocal and lyric".
- Brandy is piano, Brandy is a string section.
- Oh wow.
She, her arrangements are arrangements.
They're pads.
- Orchestrations.
- Or an orchestration like, it's, you could strip away all instrumentation of a Brandy song and have a full song.
- There's a reason why many consider Brandy's third album to be her greatest body of work.
In "Full Moon", it was time to showcase the depth of her abilities.
- Brandy said she believed the track, "What About Us" could change the game.
The offbeat, futuristic song took influence from hiphop and dance pop.
("What About Us" starting) - Rodney Jerkins had a field day on "Full Moon".
And if you listen to "Full Moon", if you is the very first song on there called, "I Thought", ("I Thought" starting) you'll hear the way that he used that same production on "Feedback" for Janet Jackson, four or five years later.
("Feedback" starting) - Rodney Jerkins literally found his sound, in my opinion, on the Brandy "Full Moon" album.
- Okay.
- Brandy is an, is a singer that producers can find their sound in.
- [Woman Narrator] As she was in the studio finishing up the production of "Full Moon", Brandy found out that she was pregnant with her daughter Sy'rai.
- [Male Narrator] Now the mother of a toddler in her twenties, Brandy was ready to show the world what adulthood looked like through her eyes.
First, she said goodbye to her longtime collaborator, Rodney Jerkins, and brought in Timbaland to produce her fourth studio album "Aphrodisiac".
- [Woman Narrator] In this album, Brandy's voice sounds more raw than ever before.
Boldly referencing Coldplay in "I Try", this classic R&B tune aligns Brandy's adlibs with her building frustration and regret in the face of infidelity.
("I Tried" starting) - With the release of "Aphrodisiac", Brandy's vocal trinity was finally complete.
Between "Never say Never", "Full Moon" and "Aphrodisiac", she provided the perfect guidebook for R&B artists for many years to come.
- Given the plethora of female artists now dominating the game, it's easy to forget how it all began.
Solange once said, "Brandy is a goddess in R&B to a lot of people.
She is really the foundation for a lot of this very innovative, progressive experimental R&B.
Brandy influenced a lot of that."
- There's a reason why Solange, one of the most experimental R&B artists of today, puts Brandy on a pedestal.
Nowadays, it's common to hear singers use their voices in unconventional ways, but back when Brandy was on her way up, that approach was practically unheard of.
- Okay.
So I have a question that I'm nervous to ask you, but can you teach me some of Brandy's vocal techniques?
- Oh my gosh.
Yes.
What song are we gonna do?
(women screaming excitedly) - Oh!
I dunno.
- Okay, so my favorite song, one of my favorite songs is, When You Touch Me".
Really miss you, baby.
- Okay.
Really miss you, baby.
- So you wanna be really specific about where you put vibrato when it comes to singing Brady.
- Okay.
Okay.
It's gonna be challenge for me to not sing with vibrato.
Really miss you, baby.
Oh.
I caught myself.
- Vibrato isn't a bad thing.
It's just not true to Brandy's aesthetic.
It's like, it's so specific in our world.
We call it "chiaroscuro", the blend of light and dark.
Like, it's just different for her.
It's really unique.
It doesn't really go by the standard.
Like, you can tell she took the standard and kind of have modified it for her signature sound.
- Today, Brandy is evidently still working on expanding her range, showcasing a few previously unheard falsetto tones on songs like "I Am More".
("I Am More" starting) - R&B is a huge part of mainstream pop music today.
In part, thanks to Brandy propelling the genre forward during a time where black female artists were all but missing from the charts.
Her TV shows, movies, and endorsement deals helped her reach role-model status, but it was her musical excellence that cemented her legacy.
Thanks for tuning in to our Brandy episode.
A friend of mine and the creator of "Sound Field" has started in a new project inspired by "Sound Field" that goes beyond music.
I'll let Joseph tell you about it.
- Working on "Sound Field" inspired me to create a new PBS documentary series called "Subcultured", which explores how lesser-known communities have influenced the mainstream culture around us.
I've met with a blind gamer who plays Mortal Kombat professionally.
I've met cowboys and cowgirls from the gay rodeo.
And I've also explored how anime became a $25 billion industry.
- Check it out on the PBS voices link in our description and let them know that Sound Field sent you.
- Here are your submissions from our last video when we asked you what your favorite pop-punk song is.
- "Ever Fallen In Love" by the Buzzcocks is perfect and I could look to it every day until I die.
- As always thanks for watching.
We wanna hear what your favorite Brandy vocal moment is.
If you'd like, you can submit a video of yourself telling us your favorite songs at the link in the description.
(upbeat music fading)
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