More Than a Woman is the fifth studio album by American singer Toni Braxton, released on November 18, 2002, by Arista Records. The album contains both hip hop and urban adult contemporary sounds, as well as some softer and more contemporary melodies. Throughout the project, Braxton worked with her sister Tamar and husband Keri Lewis on most of the songs, who had written and produced material for her previous album. She also worked with hip hop producers and rappers such as Irv Gotti, The Neptunes, Mannie Fresh and Loon, as well as Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, protégé Big Bert and singer Brandy.
With More Than a Woman, Braxton continued the transition that began with previous album, The Heat (2000), which pushed her further into the progressive R&B and hip hop market and away from the adult contemporary and pop-soul background of her previous work with Babyface and L.A. Reid. During the production of her first two albums with Arista's subsidiary LaFace Records, Braxton had little control over the creative and artistic steps she took on her albums; however, after signing a new recording contract following a three-year-long dispute with LaFace, she was able to reflect her creative maturity and evolution in the album's writing and recording. Her first two studio albums, Toni Braxton (1993) and Secrets (1996), became critical and commercial successes and sold a combined 21 million copies, earning $170 million in worldwide sales. Her recording contract with LaFace was substantially below those of other multi-platinum artists and bound her to refund all kinds of expenses the label had financed in advance, including management fees, taxes, and video budgets, earning Braxton a $1,972 royalty check only. when she filed a lawsuit asking to be freed from her long-term contractual obligations to the label in the midst of a contract renegotiation. After then being counter-sued by the label for breach of contract, the singer eventually filed for bankruptcy protection in 1998, a move that stalled all legal proceedings between the two parties.
In January 1999, Braxton mended her relationship with Reid and Babyface, when the lawsuit against LaFace was eventually settled after Braxton was awarded higher royalties, a pay raise, and publishing rights to all songs that she had co-written. Preceded by its uptempo lead single "He Wasn't Man Enough", LaFace released The Heat in April 2000, propelling Braxton back to the top of music charts. At a worldwide sales total in excess of four million copies however, the album was less successful than its predecessors. More Than a Woman is a diverse blend of danceable club numbers, trademark Braxton ballads and experimental tracks which borrow from the genres of rock and jazz. The third track "A Better Man" is a "futuristic R&B ballad". The title was ultimately inspired by the Bee Gees song of the same name (1977), which had been prominently played on Braxton's wedding dance with Keri Lewis in April 2001. Scheduled for an October 29 release before being bushed to November 19, 2002, including appearances on late-night talk show The Tonight Show, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Wayne Brady Show, Late Night with David Letterman, an NBC Today Show outdoor concert, and the lighting of the Christmas tree at New York City's Rockefeller Center. However, in September 2002, while gearing up for the release of the album, Braxton discovered she was pregnant with her second child and she was subsequently forced to cancel many scheduled performances due to complications.
Executives at the label were reportedly frustrated with the timing of her second pregnancy since the complicated pregnancy confined her to bed rest and thus prevented her from doing the extensive promotion for More Than a Woman. asked to delay the album until 2003, but the label refused. Because of her pregnancy, international publicity for More Than a Woman primarily consisted of a two-day event in Los Angeles in late October 2002. However, after Gotti had leaked it to a New York City radio station, Braxton and Arista decided to scrap its release and the song was subsequently excluded from the final track listing. Instead, the Neptunes-produced "Hit the Freeway," a collaboration with Bad Boy rapper Loon, was selected as the album's lead single. The song peaked at number 86 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 32 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and number two on the Hot Dance Club Play chart.
At one time or another, "Me & My Boyfriend," another song that Gotti contributed to More Than a Woman, was set to be released as the lead single from the album. Initially slated for a September 2002 release, the label decided to release "Hit the Freeway" in October instead. It was consequently selected as the album's second single, however rapper Jay-Z and singer Beyoncé imminently released their single "'03 Bonnie & Clyde," which coincidentally sampled the same beat (as well as lyrical and melodic content) from rapper Tupac Shakur's 1996 song "Me and My Girlfriend", causing Braxton to refrain from releasing her version as a single, and accusing Jay-Z of stealing her idea.
Arista then settled on ballad "A Better Man" instead. Written by Ivan Matias and Andrea Martin, it was sent to urban adult contemporary on December 9, 2002. According to Matias, Braxton refused to shoot a video or support the song as her next single amid controversies surrounding Keri Lewis demanding a piece of the royalties and advance with imposing himself onto the production. Although Lewis earned a vocal production credit on the song and promotional CDs were made available for radio, "A Better Man" was eventually cancelled as a single.
Critical reception
At Metacritic, which assigns a rated mean out of 100 from mainstream critics, the album received a score of 77, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on eight reviews. AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded it four out of five stars, noting that More Than a Woman was "so consistent" and closely aligned with its predecessor, The Heat, that it can be difficult to distinguish unique characteristics. He added that it "lacks a single as undeniable as "He Wasn't Man Enough," though much of the album maintains a similarly "sexy spirit," ultimately calling it "one of the most satisfying listens of its kind released that year" and "another fine record by Toni Braxton." Launch.com was positive towards the theme of the songs, writing that "all this anger's not just therapeutic – it also makes her transition to hard hip-hop diva seem sensible, instead of just a marketing move, by grounding it in something real." While discussing the album's hip-hop songs, Chris Willman from Entertainment Weekly wrote that "she has sudden hip-hop pretensions, it's low-key hip-hop, the electronic throbs provides a surprisingly suitable bed for her controlled boudoir cooing." USA Today critic Steve Jones found that the album showed a "feistier" side of Braxton, blended in hip-hop flavor, and, with help from collaborators, "showcase[d] Braxton's versatility," proving she was "more than a torch singer."
Commercial performance
More Than a Woman debuted and peaked at number 13 on the US Billboard 200, selling 98,000 copies in its first week. It marked Braxton's lowest opening sales for a non-Christmas-themed studio album up to then and was a considerable decline from her previous effort The Heat, which had opened to sales of 199,000 units in 2000. Elsewhere, More Than a Woman was unable to match the commercial success of Braxton's first three studio albums. While it failed to enter most international music markets, the album reached the top 40 of the German Albums Chart and debuted at number 23 on the Swiss Albums Chart. On March 14, 2003, Braxton issued a press statement saying she was leaving Arista for Hankerson's Universal-distributed Blackground Records, on which she released her sixth studio album Libra in 2005. In a 2012 interview with ABC News, Braxton expressed discontentment with the project when asked about the commercial failure of her albums from the mid-to-late 2000s: "Those albums – that's like that one-night stand that you don't want to talk about", she said. "You don't want anyone to know about those records that didn't do well. I had a few of those. Definitely a few."
Track listing
Notes
- signifies a co-producer
- signifies a vocal producer
- signifies an additional producer
Sample credits
- "Let Me Show You the Way (Out)" contains excerpts from "Love's Happening", written by Curtis Mayfield.
- "Me & My Boyfriend" contains excerpts from "Me and My Girlfriend", written by Tupac Shakur, Tyrone Wrice, Ricky Rouse, and Darryl Harper.
- "Tell Me" contains interpolations from the composition "Sweet Love", written by Anthony Bias, Anita Baker, and Louis Johnson.
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of More Than a Woman.
Musicians
- Toni Braxton – vocals, background vocals
- No I.D. – all instruments, programming
- Keri – arrangement ; drum programming, keyboards ; Rhodes, guitar
- Tamar Braxton – background vocals
- Terrence "Bearwolf" Williams – keyboards
- Baby – rap vocals
- Mannie Fresh – rap vocals
- Andrea Martin – arrangement, background vocals
- Ivan Matias – arrangement
- Gerrard C. Baker – all instruments, programming
- Pharrell Williams – instruments, instrument arrangements, additional vocals
- Chad Hugo – instruments, instrument arrangements, additional vocals
- Loon – rap vocals
- Chris "Daddy" Dave – drums
- Keith Lewis – guitar
- O'Dell – guitar
- Stokley – acoustic guitar, solo guitar, background vocals
- Ricky Kinchen – bass
- Blake English – guitar
- Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins – all music
- Tomi Martin – guitar
- Jeremy Lubbock – string arrangements
- Ricky Rouse – guitar
- Babyface – drum programming, keyboards, bass
- Clare Fischer – orchestra arrangements, orchestra conducting
- Robert "Big Bert" Smith – keyboards
- Brent Fischer – orchestra arrangements, orchestra conducting ; orchestra project coordinator, orchestra management
- Assa Drori – violin
- Amy Hershberger – violin
- Joe Ketendjian – violin
- Armen Garabedian – violin
- Pat Aiken – violin
- Sally Berman – violin
- Brian Benning – violin
- Irma Neumann – violin
- Agnes Gottschewski – violin
- Phillip Levy – violin
- Rebecca Bunnell – violin
- Johana Krejci – violin
- Henry Gronnier – violin
- Dennis Molchan – violin
- Miwako Watanabe – violin
- Julie Rogers – violin
- Kazi Pitelka – viola
- Jorge Moraga – viola
- Carole Kleister-Castillo – viola
- Thomas Diener – viola
- Renita Koven – viola
- Lynn Grants – viola
- Cecilia Tasn – cello
- Maurice Grants – cello
- Dan Smith – cello
- Earl Madison – cello
- Oscar Hidalgo – contrabass
- Drew Dembowski – contrabass
Technical
- No I.D. – production
- Keri – co-production, Pro Tools editing ; recording ; vocal production ; production ; mixing ; executive production
- Kevin "KD" Davis – mixing
- Dion Peters – mixing assistance
- Mannie Fresh – production
- Mark "DJ Exit" Goodchild – recording
- Leslie Brathwaite – mixing
- Ivan Matias – production
- Andrea Martin – production
- Gerrard C. Baker – production
- Mark Pitts – additional production
- Victor Mancusi – recording, mixing
- Rene Antelmann – mixing assistance
- Kirk Lightburn – song coordination
- The Neptunes – production
- Andrew "Drew" Coleman – recording
- Frannie Graham – recording assistance
- Cedric Anderson – recording assistance
- Phil Tan – mixing
- John Horesco IV – mixing assistance
- Steve Hodge – mixing
- Larry Mah – string recording
- Stephen Glicken – mixing assistance
- Robert "Big Bert" Smith – production
- Blake English – recording, mixing
- Paul Foley – recording
- Yen-Hue Tan – recording assistance
- Spencer Swanson – recording assistance
- Mike Houge – recording assistance
- Brett Liebermann – mixing assistance
- Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins – production, mixing
- Fabian Marasciullo – recording
- Dexter Simmons – mixing
- John Kurlander – string recording
- Chink Santana – production
- Irv Gotti – production
- Brian Springer – recording, mixing
- Babyface – production
- Paul Boutin – recording
- Edward Quesada – recording assistance
- Craig Taylor – recording assistance
- Serban Ghenea – mixing
- Tim Roberts – mixing assistance
- John Hanes – additional Pro Tools engineering
- Ivy Skoff – production coordination
- Jean-Marie Horvat – recording
- Brent Fischer – orchestra management, orchestra project coordination
- Assa Drori – orchestra management
- Toni Braxton – executive production
- Antonio "L.A." Reid – executive production
- Herb Powers Jr. – mastering
- Allen D. Hong – project coordination
- Evelyn Beauman – project assistance
Artwork
- Richard Thomas Jennings – art direction
- Tony Duran – cover and matching interior photo
- Daniela Federici – inside photo
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Weekly chart performance for More Than a Woman
! scope="col"| Chart (2002)
! scope="col"| Peak<br>position
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 66
|-
! scope="row"|Canadian R&B Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
|style="text-align:center;"|19
|-
|-
! scope="row"| European Albums (Music & Media)
| 88
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Japanese Albums (Oricon)
| 114
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 2002 year-end chart performance for More Than a Woman
! scope="col"| Chart (2002)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian R&B Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 134
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 2003 year-end chart performance for More Than a Woman
! scope="col"| Chart (2003)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 194
|-
! scope="row"| US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)
| 60
|}
Certifications
Release history
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|+ Release history for More Than a Woman
! scope="col"| Region
! scope="col"| Date
! scope="col"| Label
! scope="col"|
|-
! scope="row"| Germany
| rowspan="2"| November 18, 2002
| BMG
| align="center"|
|-
! scope="row"| United Kingdom
| LaFace
| align="center"|
|-
! scope="row"| United States
| November 19, 2002
| Arista
| align="center"|
|-
! scope="row"| Japan
| November 27, 2002
| BMG
| align="center"|
|}