After more than 25 years in music, Brandy has learned to define success differently. “For me, it’s not about the charts. It’s not about the huge record sales. For me, it’s about the body of work,” Brandy tells Jezebel. That catalog includes several Billboard top 10 hits across six albums, and her latest project doesn’t stray too far from this narrative.
B7, her first studio album in eight years, topped the independent charts this month, featuring collabs with her daughter Sy’Rai, Daniel Caesar, and Chance the Rapper on the pulsating anthem “Baby Mama,” produced by Hit-Boy. “I wanted to do a song about being a single mom,” says Brandy. “I also wanted to bring a positive light to the [phrase] ‘baby mama’ because it has such a negative connotation to it.”
In the video above, Brandy discusses the hardest and most rewarding things about making her latest album, creating from the heart, and learning to trust the writing process.