Kenny Babyface helped make my dreams come true. How does “Love, Marriage & Divorce” compare to the work you and Babyface did in the ’90s? We’re kind of like Elliot Stabler (and Olivia Benson) on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” You want them to get together, there’s a bit of attraction, but we’ve never crossed the line. (Laughs) Well, we really aren’t brother and sister, so it wouldn’t be incest! But I call him my “musical husband” and we are married, but just musically. So then with “Sweat,” a song off the new album, is it weird to sing about makeup sex with your “brother”? But it’s like having a crush on your cousin and you realize, “Maybe I shouldn’t have a crush on my cousin. I was the girl who was like, “I’ll never have a chance with him,” and from there we just became brother and sister. Very quickly he became my big brother when we started working together. I’ve been in love with him since he was in (’80s R&B group) The Deele. How do you make a love album with an attractive, talented man like Babyface and not fall in love? I’ll be 85 years old singing at the Cafe Carlyle like Eartha Kitt. Sometimes you just need friends and family to rally around you and let you know it’s gonna be OK. I think everybody goes through that, but I didn’t realize, I guess, just how sad I was at that time – and friends like Babyface, Missy Elliott, Fantasia and Anita Baker helped talk me out of that state. Obviously not weed, because I would’ve still stayed in the business! (Laughs) You know what, I was just in a sad space in my life. What were you smoking when you said you were gonna give up on music? I am so glad he wasn’t about to let you throw in the towel. The two most notably collaborated on her self-titled debut, the singer’s mega-selling caper that scored her a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1994.īraxton was candid as ever in our recent chat, talking about why she told Babyface that she’s a grown woman (“I have breasts now”), her desire to have a lesbian experience and how short hair put her back in touch with her roots.įirst of all, thank god for Babyface.

4), her first album since 2010’s “Pulse,” brings Braxton back together with Babyface. Luckily, he changed her mind, and hearts everywhere were unbroken. “I have a bit of a cold,” she says, her voice doing that sexy-low thing it does when she sings, “so yeah, it’s very Bea Arthur from ‘The Golden Girls.'”Ī little cold can’t stop Braxton, who’s already faced bankruptcy, is managing lupus and then, before friend/producer Babyface intervened, almost retired from the music business altogether.

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