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Bio
With an impressive catalog of five albums (alongside 2003's best-selling Ultimate Collection), Toni Braxton has built a worldwide base of music lovers since she first burst onto the contemporary music scene in 1991 with "Love Shoulda Brought You Home" (from the soundtrack of the hit movie "Boomerang"). As the 'First Lady Of LaFace Records,' Toni's creative partnership with Antonio 'L.A.' Reid and Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds yielded a non-stop run of multi-platinum albums with 1993's Toni Braxton, 1996's Secrets and the 2000 set The Heat through to the 2001 Snowflakes holiday album and 2003's highly personal and thought-provoking More Than A Woman CD, which featured a number of songs written by Toni herself as well as production from The Neptunes and Rodney Jerkins among others.
Along the way, Toni distinguished herself with unforgettable hit singles such as "Another Sad Love Song," "Breathe Again," "Un-Break My Heart," "You're Makin' Me High" and "He Wasn't Man Enough" picking up five Grammy Awards in the process (in 1993 for "Best New Artist" and "Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female"; in 1994 for another "Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female" award; and in 1997, as winner in both the "Best R&B" and "Best Pop" Female Vocal Performance categories).
With natural musical skills that were immediately evident when she started singing in church with her four sisters in Severn, Maryland and inspired by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan and Whitney Houston, Toni had set her sights on a singing career from her earliest days. It was while studying to become a teacher at Bowie State University that she came to the attention of LaFace owners L.A. Reid and Babyface. Her decade with LaFace was filled with both accomplishment and challenge; while she constantly achieved chart success globally, racking up some forty-million worldwide sales through her five LaFace albums, Toni dealt with a much-publicized bankruptcy in 1997 which she recalled was "a major learning opportunity for me." Resolved in 1998, Toni began her first Broadway run that year with a starring role in "Beauty & The Beast." The 2000 success of The Heat, her third album was typified by Top 10 status in over a dozen countries including the U.S., France, Germany, Holland, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Hong Kong, South Africa, Greece, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Israel and Switzerland. The album's gold single "He Wasn't Man Enough" earned Toni a 2000 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" while the album won two American Music Awards.
While doing promotional work on The Heat, Toni made her silver screen debut with "Kingdom Come" which featured an all-star cast and earned her a BET Black Oscar. In 2000, she was also given the coveted Aretha Franklin Soul Train Award for career achievement. The October 2001 release of Snowflakes, Toni's critically-acclaimed holiday album provided further validation for her popularity. In 2002, Toni began work on More Than A Woman which she described as "more 'in your face' than my previous albums." At the time she explained, "My first love has always been R&B and I've been into hip-hop since it first started. On each of the albums I've done since my first one, I've done things to introduce people to other aspects of what I'm about musically.
In 2005, following the release of her fifth album Libra, Toni headlined her own show at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The show Toni Braxton: Revealed was originally only scheduled for a three month run, however the show's success prompted an extension through April 2008. In August 2008, Toni competed on ABC's Dancing with Stars and headlined the Dancing with the Stars tour. Toni recently signed with Atlantic Records and is working on a new album scheduled for release in early 2010.