Toni "Makes My Heart" Smile, But Can She Stage a Comeback!!!

Toni Braxton is to the 90's what Rihanna is to whatever the state of music is now (we don't have to think too hard about whose the better artist). However, when Toni set up shop at the Flamingo in Vegas for (lets keep it real) a paycheck , it signaled the end of an era. Rife with conjecture, Toni's label worries and bankruptcy was well publicized. As was her lawsuit with LeFace records which handed her (and other 90's recording artist) one of the worst contracts the industry has probably ever seen for such a burgeoning critical and commercial success.

Flying high on fumes from 1996's "Secrets" a classic to this day and 2000's "The Heat" (a criminally underrated offering), Toni has been absent for the better part of a decade. Well, that's if you don't count 2002's "More than a Woman" and 2005's "Libra" both ridiculously forgettable offering that didn't register on anybody's radar. Well flash forward to the Trey Songs incident and Toni finds herself in fresher creative waters with her criminally pushed back "Pulse" slated for a fourth quarter 2009 release and now having been pushed back at least twice this year, here's hoping that Toni can hold some of the momentum, especially after releasing snoozefests like "Yesterday" that sounds like it came from the bowels of ballad hell. "Make My Heart" aside from being rendered as a kick ass, sexy piece of key art, is a song after my own heart. I say that because years ago Snoop released a track that was never included on any of his albums featuring a female vocalist with this same beat. I have been searching for years for the MP3 of the song, so surprise surprise when I went blog hunting and discovered this blast of audible oxygen "Make My Heart" sampling the same beat.

What I have heard from "Pulse" sounds varied and mixed with the final tracklisting still being a mystery. Here's hoping that Toni and her team can get it together and move more in the uptempo direction and finally stick a release date so that we don't see Toni's latest project flatline.