Toni Braxton

Toni Braxton is an American singer-songwriter and actress whose three-decade music career has produced seven Grammy Awards and over 70 million records sold worldwide — making her one of the bestselling American R&B-and-pop female artists of the 1990s and 2000s. She was born Toni Michele Braxton on October 7, 1967, in Severn, Maryland, into a working-class African-American Apostolic-Pentecostal family. Her father Michael Braxton was an Apostolic-Pentecostal minister and Maryland Power and Light electrical-business worker, and her mother Evelyn Braxton was a Pentecostal minister and homemaker.

Her 1989 founding of The Braxtons (a five-person Apostolic-Pentecostal-tradition R&B sister-singing group, alongside her four sisters Trina, Towanda, Traci, and Tamar) — and the group's 1989 first commercial single "The Good Life" — launched her early-career American R&B public profile. The 1990 dissolution of The Braxtons produced her solo Arista Records signing under producer L.A. Reid.

Her July 13, 1993 first solo commercial album Toni Braxton — released by LaFace Records and Arista Records — sold over 10 million American copies and produced her American R&B-and-pop-music public profile through her singles "Another Sad Love Song" (which won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female) and "Breathe Again" (which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100).

Her 1996 second solo commercial album Secrets — released June 18, 1996 by LaFace Records and Arista Records — sold over 16 million copies worldwide and produced her mid-1990s American R&B-and-pop commercial peak. The 1996 album produced her single "Un-Break My Heart" (which spent 11 consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance).

Her 1998 Chapter 11 personal-bankruptcy filing — produced by her LaFace Records and Arista Records contractual disputes (across which she earned approximately $2,000 in royalties from the 1996 Secrets album that sold 16 million copies worldwide) — shaped her later biographical narrative. Her subsequent late-1990s and 2000s commercial career has produced multiple American R&B commercial albums, although her 1998 personal-bankruptcy shaped her late-career biographical narrative. She married Keri Lewis in 2001 (divorced 2013), and the couple has two sons. She has been with American rapper Birdman since 2018.

Her name Toni began as the unisex English diminutive of Antonia (the feminine form of Anthony, from the Latin Antonius). Toni has been a popular American girls' name across the late 20th century.