Full Moon (Brandy Norwood Album) - Background and Development

Background and Development

After the end of her promotional touring for her album Never Say Never (1998), the cancellation of her UPN sitcom Moesha and a flurry of tabloid headlines discussing her nervous breakdown in November 1999 —the result of a failed relationship and her then-hectic and unhealthy lifestyle— Norwood went on a lengthy hiatus to reflect and take some introspective looks. "I needed to rejuvenate, get my creative juices flowing, balance my life with some privacy, to find my confidence, find my love of music again," she told Jet magazine in 2002. In mid-2000, she started reconsecrating herself on her musical career, contributing songs to albums such as Urban Renewal (2001) and the Osmosis Jones soundtrack (2001), which introduced a scratchy, evocative edge to Norwood's voice, now having a deeper and warmer tone with a textured lower register and notably stronger falsetto.

In fall 2000, Norwood finally began conceiving ideas for a third studio album with the Atlantic label. While Rodney Jerkins, the main producer of her previous album, and his Darkchild crew, including Fred Jerkins III and LaShawn Daniels, had been working on several new songs for the singer's upcoming project in hopes of recreating the winning chemistry of Never Say Never, Norwood wanted to make sure that she was gaining more creative control over the project and thus, arranged meetings with all her writers and musicians to discuss the lyricals topics and sounds she wanted for the album. "I was involved from A-Z," she said. "Every song on the album was inspired by my life I wanted to talk about how I feel on so many levels. I wanted to be in touch with all of my emotions and share them. I've taken three years off for myself and got a chance to find things I like to do, things I don't like and things I want to change about myself." While Jerkins maintained his status as the album's executive producer, contributing most to its track listing with his team, Norwood also worked with producers Mike City, Keith Crouch, Warryn "Baby Dubb" Campbell, Stuart Brawley, Jason Derlatka, and Jerkin's cousin Robert "Big Bert" Smith, with whom she became romantically involved during the project. In addition, she also recorded with Babyface, and production duos Soulshock & Karlin and The Neptunes, but none of their songs eventually made the album's final tracklisting. Rapper Ja Rule was reportedly also involved into the project.

Though Norwood has acknowledged that the creative focus of the album was very much on its technical realization and its sound, she declared Full Moon a concept album based on the development of a male-female relationship: "It's definitely the concept for the album —me falling in love, then going through some turbulence, and then, at the end, I find the person that I really want to be with— so it's a great concept and it's a great experience that I had. I found out a lot about myself. I found a lot out about love, and I'm just happy to have that reflect in my music." Accounting the last three years of her life, Norwood decided to name the album after its title track, stating: "I have done a complete circle and I feel whole. All of that's reflected in the music. That's why I entitled Full Moon. It's a concept album, it's autobiographical. Everything that I've gone through in the last three years is reflected." The album was originally set to be released on November 20, 2001, but plans were scrapped.