However exalted and incontestable the path of a star’s career across the firmament of commerce, it’s never quite exalted and incontestable enough, it seems. Chris Martin’s recent collaboration with Jamelia (he wrote the lion’s share of her current single, "See It In A Boy’s Eyes", and also guests) and the use by Brandy of a sample of Coldplay’s "Clocks" and her borrowing of lyrics from their "Sparks" suggest either a genuine, mutual admiration or the realisation of the phenomenal, untapped potential of each other’s markets. When exactly did Martin give up bedwetting and start getting jiggy with R&B pop divas?
Not that 25-year-old Brandy Norwood ever needed a leg-up from Coldplay. In her decade-long career, she’s released three albums, worked with George Clinton and Bootsy Collins (as backing vocalist) and producer Rodney Jerkins, and had previously enjoyed a thoroughly lucrative teen life as a TV actress. With her fourth LP, she stated her initial desire was for a more "mature, sexy and aggressive vibe." Well, one outta three….
"Afrodisiac" is Brandy’s most personally revealing album to date and her least lyrically fluffy, but its intimacy is hamstrung by the MTV-flavoured, formulaic gloop with which most contemporary, American R&B now seems to be contaminated. Over much of the album, the singer’s vocals are multi-tracked so excessively it sounds as if there were routinely 30 Brandy clones in the recording studio, and were Brandy as toughly original a voice as say, Kelis, or even the late Aaliyah, that would surely never have been necessary.
Timbaland’s distinctive, clipped beat patterns and dry production help save much of the album from overwrought repetitiveness and there are two killer tracks – first single, the punchy "Talk About Our Love" (both written by and featuring rapper Kanye West) and the lean, low-lying "Where You Wanna Be", which West both wrote and produced. In contrast, "How I Feel" (one of many tunes here penned by longtime Timbaland collaborator Walter Millsap) is an indecent overdose of sub-Jacko schmaltz in which Brandy aspirates so extravagantly, you fear for her bronchi.
The album’s title suggests everything that it hopes to be, but is not – ie rootsy, deeply soulful and sensual - but it does tally with Brandy’s declared love of both Lauryn Hill and India Arie. Quite how she’s evolved into a more timid Janet Jackson, then, is a mystery.
