Toni Braxton
The Heat
(LaFace)
In the four years since the release of her
breakthrough sophomore effort, Secrets, Toni
Braxton has sold several million records, filed for
bankruptcy, sued her record label, and fought
off -- with varying degrees of success --
numerous pretenders to her throne. While Braxton
is likely the finest, and certainly the
most measured, of the little-clothing, big-
voice divas, flashier acts including Christina
Aguilera and Mariah Carey have taken the lion's share
of both the public's attention and the hard-
won adult-contemporary audience.
The Heat is Braxton's best and most assured work yet,
though it's overstuffed with the sort of
superstar production and writing collaborations that
usually signal overly stylized artistic rot.
Braxton manages to hold her own amongst a
phalanx of heavy hitters that includes longtime co-
producer Babyface, assembly-line songwriter Diane
Warren, and producer-writer Rodney Jerkins,
whose contribution, the already No. 1 "He
Wasn't Man Enough," is one of Braxton's
savviest tracks ever.
The Heat features the usual mixture of soulful ballads
and slightly frisky R&B tracks, which have
made Braxton's fortune, albeit with a vague
aura of edginess that's been missing from
her past works. Contributions from TLC's
Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and Dr. Dre, both of whom rap on
their respective tracks, are presumably meant
to give the perennially M.O.R. Braxton some
street cred, which they do, sort of. The Dr.
Dre/Braxton duet, "Just Be a Man About It," is
a keeper, a sassy, forthright track that
crackles with precisely the sort of smart, streetwise
interplay Braxton needs if she's ever
going to break out of the gilded cage she'
s long been too good for.
Allison Stewart
