Monica & Brandy

Brandy Rayana Norwood (born February 11, 1979), known professionally as Brandy or Bran'Nu, is an American recording artist and actress.[2] Born into a musical family in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Carson, California, she enrolled in performing arts schools as a child. In 1993, Norwood appeared in a supporting role on the short-lived ABC sitcom Thea and signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records. The following year, she released her self-titled debut album; singles "I Wanna Be Down" and "Baby" peaked atop the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart. Norwood starred in the successful UPN sitcom Moesha in 1996, which lasted six seasons and resulted in roles in the 1998 horror sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and the TV films Cinderella (1997) and Double Platinum (1999). She resumed her music career in 1998 with the widely successful duet with Monica "The Boy Is Mine" and her second album Never Say Never. The album was certified multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Throughout the 2000s, Norwood experienced career and commercial turbulence. In 2002, she starred in the reality series Brandy: Special Delivery. Her third and fourth albums Full Moon (2002) and Afrodisiac (2004) were released to commercial success. She served as a judge on the first season of America's Got Talent and began a recurring role on The Game before being involved in a widely-publicized car accident in 2006. After several lawsuits stemming from the accident, Norwood's fifth album Human was released in 2008. In 2010, she returned to television as a contestant on the eleventh season of Dancing with the Stars and starred in the reality series Brandy & Ray J: A Family Business with younger brother Ray J. She held a recurring role on Drop Dead Diva in 2011 and released her sixth album Two Eleven the following year. Within pop music, Norwood has become known for her distinctive sound, characterised by her peculiar timbre, voice-layering, throaty riffs, and beat-driven R&B.[3] She has since been signed to both Epic Records and RCA Records, where she has acquired a catalogue of hits with singles such as "What About Us?," "Full Moon," and "Put It Down" being her most successful. She has sold over 8.62 million copies of her first five studio albums in the United States,[4] and over 30 million records worldwide.[5] ____________________________________________________________________________________ Monica's Bio Monica Denise Brown (née Arnold; born October 24, 1980) professionally known as Monica, is an American R&B singer, songwriter and occasional actress. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, Monica began performing as a child and became part of a traveling gospel choir, at the age of ten. Guided and developed by producers Dallas Austin and Tim & Bob, she signed with Arista Records at age thirteen and released her debut album Miss Thang in 1995. Its first two singles "Don't Take It Personal" and "Before You Walk out of My Life" made her the youngest recording act to ever have two consecutive chart-topping hits on the US Billboard Top R&B Singles chart. In 1998, Arnold's second album The Boy Is Mine earned her major international chart success. Pushed by its Grammy Award-winning number-one hit title track, a duet with singer Brandy, it spawned two further chart-toppers, "The First Night" and "Angel of Mine", and established her position as one of the most successful of the urban R&B female vocalists to emerge in the mid to late-1990s.[2] During the production of her third album All Eyez on Me (2002), Arnold experienced personal struggles and her career went under hiatus.[3] In 2003, her fourth album After the Storm was released on J Records, and after an unsuccessful period, she scored her fifth number one single, "So Gone". Her latest album Still Standing, whose recording was tracked by a BET reality series of the same name, was released in 2010 and produced the hit singles "Everything to Me" and "Love All Over Me", the first of which became Arnold's sixth number one hit.[4] Arnold has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, including over 5.1 million units in the United States alone.[2][5] With a career lasting over 15 years, she became the first artist to top the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.[6] In 2010, Billboard listed Arnold at number 24 on its list of the Top 50 R&B and Hip Hop Artists of the past 25 years.[7] Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.