In PHASES, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, producer and actress Brandy recounts the secrets, sorrows and successes that brought her into the limelight from an early age.

Born in a tiny town in Mississippi, Brandy Norwood moved with her family to Carson, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, when she was four. Her childhood years reflect America’s conflicted views and policies surrounding racial integration, as her grandfather marched against white supremacists. In Carson, she came to feel that everyone in her school despised her, with several unpleasant incidents seeming to confirm that depressing fact.

"Readers will have no doubt that [Brandy's] story is factual, finely honed, diligently documented, and meant to be shared with all those wishing to make the best of life’s many endowments."

But Brandy’s voice was her salvation. It garnered her attention, praise, and eventually a chance for professional participation. Her father was a highly gifted conductor and music teacher. He recognized her abilities and pushed her forward, even when she found herself frozen with fear during single-song performances. As detailed in her wide-ranging recollections, she learned to control her anxiety and soon was singing to audiences of hundreds.

Brandy’s gifts were sufficient to draw her into the circle of one of her heroes, Whitney Houston. By the time she turned 14, she had a contract with Atlantic Records. Brandy’s mother quit her job to become her daughter’s manager, believing that this was her greatest calling in life. 

Brandy’s trajectory was lightning fast and seemed to have no limits. She was trained as an actress and starred in the revolutionary television series “Moesha.” Her awards and distinctions both amazed and secretly comforted the young woman who had once felt undeserving. She was the first Black Cinderella in a Rodgers and Hammerstein production that aired on ABC, costarred with Diana Ross in the made-for-television drama Double Platinum, and appeared on stage and in motion pictures with such entertainment icons as Whoopi Goldberg, Cher and Tina Turner. 

Brandy has headlined in world music and film tours, worked on behalf of UNICEF, and developed the Norwood Kids Foundation with her brother, Ray J. It encourages young people to find themselves, as she has done, with talent-based determination. One of Brandy’s earliest assertions rings out many times in her honestly told, admirably constructed personal history: “I didn’t want to pretend to be someone else.” Readers will have no doubt that her story is factual, finely honed, diligently documented, and meant to be shared with all those wishing to make the best of life’s many endowments.