New Braxton On The Block - Brief Article

"It's time for women to stand up and say enough is enough," Tamar Braxton exclaims. She does just that on the "I will survive" hip-hop soul anthems that pack her bangin' debut album Tamar (DreamWorks). Indeed, she makes abundantly clear she don't want no scrubs. "Number one, you're not gonna disrespect me--I'm not your ho, I'm not your freak, and I'm not your baby's mother," she explains.

The twenty-one-year-old is, however, the younger sister of soul superstar Toni Braxton. As a result, she's spent some serious time in her older sibling's shadow, both as a backup singer for Toni and as a member of the family singing group the Braxtons. And while the bubbly junior Braxton had no trouble getting respect from most of her cadre of midas-touch producers like Missy Elliott and Jermaine Dupri, some continued to compare her to big sis. "They expected me to sound exactly like Toni. Well, her," she says. She's right. While their voices are similar--"We are born from the same blood," she notes--Tamar's sassily youthful hip-hop 'tude sets itself far apart from Toni's mature grooves.

Then again establishing her own identity is just another hurdle for this strong-willed preacher's kid whose deeply religious family forbade their daughters to wear pants or listen to secular music for years. "Tamar Braxton is who I am," she says. "I will get my own name once every one hears Tamar for Tamar."

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