Credit: Press

Brandy’s career and success began when she started singing. Her silky vocals and heavenly harmonies took her all the way to the top of the charts, and before long, she was one of R&B’s latest sensations. However, few know the Never Say Never creator once experimented with hip-hop.

As well as music, Brandy has had a successful career in acting and in her role as Naomi on the ABC series Queens, the ‘Have You Ever?’ vocalist had to spit some bars. As such, while promoting the series, it came out that the singer wasn’t new to the art form, which shocked many of her longtime fans.

Following her third project, Full Moon, Brandy felt she had achieved what she wanted in the world of R&B and wanted to become a bit more versatile. There are few artists that can both sing and rap, but she felt like it would be a useful weapon and wanted to split her time between R&B and hip-hop. Unfortunately it didn’t work out the way she had planned.

In an interview with the New York Times, Brandy spoke about playing a rapper on the ABC comedy-drama and unveiled that, for her, it was a dream come true. The vocalist explained how, at heart, she is a performer, so being able to sing, rap and act for one project was terrific.

Recalling her first musical theatre experience, Brandy told the publication, “I remember how Broadway made me feel. I felt so good doing Broadway, and I was like, ‘If I could do something like this for television, this would be amazing.'”

She explained how the roel of Naomi made perfect sense as it was parallel to her real liife, stating, “Music is my first love, so to be a part of a show where I can actually sing, dance, rap, act — it’s like a dream role.”

As she hadn’t rapped professionally for years, the Afrodisiac performer admitted that she spent months in preparation to get her flow down as a rapper, detailing, “I haven’t had much experience, but I’ve been rapping for a little bit, and I’ve always wanted to push my instrument to whatever level it could go to.”

Brandy’s Snoop Dogg’s cousin, so it is fair to say she is hardly removed from hip-hop and nows the culture extremely well. That said, her knowledge allowed her to draw inspiration from a range of artists. Speaking about her influences and portrayal of Naomi [Xplicit], Brandy added, “I’ve been inspired all my life by hip-hop. For Xplicit, it’s been Nas, Jadakiss, Cam’Ron, Lauryn Hill, and Nicki Minaj. I love the challenge of having to find a certain tone to become Xplicit. Because of the way she’s written, she’s the glue that holds everything together, so I had to find this certain kind of swag that I don’t naturally have. I had to really work on that.”

Brandy’s rap phase in music saw her take on the moniker B-Rocka, and Timbaland even endorsed her. In a 2009 MTV News interview, the Virginia producer stated, “She can rap. She’s got the swagger, the tone — ain’t nothing I can say about it.”

She rapped partially on her 2008 project, Human, but under a different name. Detailing this Brandy explained, “Timbaland endorsed that. He changed my name to Bran’ Nu,” she said. “He really gave me a shot to be different and be versatile. I can’t thank him enough for that. This is a wonderful opportunity. I’m blessed to be here…I wrote my own verses. Anything I did, I wrote myself.”

While promoting Queens, people were shocked by her emceeing skills, including Charlemagne Tha God and DJ Envy of The Breakfast Club. However, Brandy explained her history, unveiling, “I dabbled in rap back in the day, and nobody wanted to hear me rap. People are so used to me singing. It’s all good. But God had another plan to bring about Queens and I just completely relate, not just to my character, but to all the women.”