Brandy gets personal

Brandy is in Chicago. The Windy City is one more stop in her continuing tour of US cities to promote her new album Afrodisiac. She was not really able to do much promo work for her last release, Full Moon, from two years ago. She was then pregnant with daughter Sy’rai and starring in one of the first reality shows to feature a big celebrity, Brandy’s Special Delivery. Now that Sy’rai is old enough to travel with her mom, Brandy is making up for that lapse with lots of personal appearances, pictorials and interviews including phoners with writers from various parts of the world.

"I am very happy with Afrodisiac. This is a very special album. I took some risks and everything worked out fine," she says. One of those risks was choosing to work with new producers like current hot names Kanye West and Timbaland instead of past associates like Rodney Jenkins who gave her This Boy is Mine and the album Full Moon. "This is not like there is something bad between Rodney and me. It was just that we are going off in different directions at this moment. I cannot say I’ll never work with Rodney again. If there is a time one day when we find ourselves moving in the same direction, I will work with him again."

Timbaland, who had done great work with the late Aaliyah is responsible for most of the cuts in the album including the new single Who is She 2 You and Brandy’s favorite, Afrodisiac. "Timbaland and I chose each other at a time when I wanted to explore my options and I think he brought out something different from me." That something different is an edgy sensuality now exposed in her music for the first time.

Does she think maturity in an artist is equal to being sensual? "Yes. All of us, we reach a time in our lives when we become sensual with somebody and I like the fact that these songs show my feelings about things that happened to me. This is not anything to be embarrassed about." Brandy did not do much writing for the album but nearly every cut can be associated with her personal experiences. In fact, she describes working on Afrodisiac as therapeutic. "I was more technical before like they tell me how to do things and I do it that way because it was right. This time though, it is more of how I feel. It is honest and very personal."

"Thank you for all the tears, all the stress, I am a better woman now," she sings in the opening track Who I Am, and this can refer to the relationship with Sy’rai’s father that she recently ended. "You’re my afrodisiac," she sings in the title track and this one might be about how she feels towards rumored boyfriend LA Clipper Quentin Richardson.

The candid approach to these feelings combined with Brandy’s honeyed tones and Timbaland’s hard driving R&B result in a sexy package of songs most people can associate with. "Hey, that happened to me," is a probable response from women who should be glad to find they have something in common with Brandy who became a star at 15. The same holds true for the men who will admit sheepishly to the same reaction.

A string of big sellers skyrocketed Brandy to the top after her debut with I Wanna Be Down in 1994, Baby, Brokenhearted, Best Friend, Sittin’ Up in My Room, Missing You, The Boy is Mine, Have You Ever and others, not to mention the clever career positioning with television’s Cinderella and movie I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Ergo songs in Afrodisiac are expected to keep Brandy on the same track. Of course, her priority right now is being a mother to Sy’rai, "She is such a joy. I sing to her. We do things together. I play games with her." Would she allow Sy’rai to get into show business? "If that is what she wants, I will be supportive of her plans just as my mother was very supportive of me."

With a daughter close by, the 25-year-old Brandy is no different from most single moms right now. They are all working on their careers. She is developing a new TV show. "It will not be like anything I’ve done before. Not like Moesha or Special Delivery," she reveals. She continues to promote the album. "We are putting together the Afrodisiac tour. I have not toured in a long time so I am very excited. I will do the US soon and then we hope to go to Europe and Asia next year." Maybe one of those countries she will visit will be the Philippines? "Sure," Brandy replies.