Inga DeCarlo Fung Marchand, known as Foxy Brown, was born on 06 September 1978, growing up with her two older brothers in Park Slope, a middle-class neighbourhood in Brooklyn. While still a teenager, she won a local talent contest, and members of the production team Trackmasters, who were working on LL Cool J's Mr. Smith album, were in attendance that night. They were impressed enough to invite Brown to rap on 'I Shot Ya', following this with appearances on several RIAA platinum and gold singles from other artists, including remixes of songs 'You're Makin' Me High' by Toni Braxton, as well as featuring on the soundtrack to the 1996 film 'The Nutty Professor'. She became an instant sensation due to rapping provocatively at such a young age, and this led to a label bidding war at the beginning of 1996, which was won in March by Def Jam Records, who then added the 17-year-old rapper to their roster. In 1996 she released her debut album 'Ill Na Na' to strong sales, helped in no small part by being heavily produced by Trackmasters, and featuring guest appearances from Jay-Z, Blackstreet, Method Man, and Kid Capri. Following the release of 'Ill Na Na', Brown joined fellow New York-based hip hop artists, Nas, AZ, and Cormega (later replaced by Nature) to form the supergroup known as The Firm, releasing their debut album on Aftermath Records. It boasted production duties by Dr. Dre, the Trackmasters, and Steve "Commissioner" Stoute, and crashed into the Billboard 200 album chart at No. 1. She spent the first half of 1997 touring, joining rapper Snoop Dogg, pop group The Spice Girls, and rock band Stone Temple Pilots, for the spring break festivities hosted by MTV in Panama City, Florida, and then joining the Smokin' Grooves tour, performing alongside Cypress Hill, Erykah Badu, The Roots, OutKast, and The Pharcyde.
Her second solo album was released in January 1999, with 'Chyna Doll' once again topping the Billboard 200 Album chart, equalling Lauryn Hill's record as the first female rapper to accomplish this feat. Two years later she released 'Broken Silence', but despite a couple of popular singles being released from it, it could only manage a number 5 showing on the Billboard Charts, although like previous albums, it did sell over 500,000 records and was certified gold by the RIAA. In 2002, Brown returned to the music scene with her single 'Stylin'', which was to be the first single from her upcoming album 'Ill Na Na 2: The Fever', and the next year, she was featured on DJ Kayslay's single 'Too Much for Me' from his 'Street Sweeper's Volume One Mixtape', as well as on Luther Vandross' final studio album 'Dance With My Father', but her fourth studio album stayed mysteriously absent from the schedules. In April 2003, Brown appeared on popular New York radio DJ Wendy Williams' radio show, and revealed the details of her relationship with Lyor Cohen, president of Def Jam Recordings at the time, and also with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. Brown accused both of illegally trading her recording masters, and announced that Cohen had cancelled promotion for 'Ill Na Na 2: The Fever' over personal disagreements between them. 'Stylin'' was later released on the compilation album 'The Source Presents: Hip Hop Hits Vol. 6', but its parent album has never seen the light of day. It did get as far as a promo CD, but with no support from the record company it quietly vanished, and so here is the cancelled fourth album from Foxy Brown, which as is so often the case with these shelved projects, is far too good not to be heard.
Track listing
01 Intro (Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood) (feat. Nina Simone)
02 Magnetic
03 The Original
04 We Makin' It (feat. Pretty Boy)
05 Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
06 Open Book
07 Memory Lane
08 Jumpin' (feat. Fox-5)
09 Streets Love Me
10 Why, Why, Why?
11 All My Life (Black Girl Lost)
12 Fan Love
13 I Need A Man (feat. The Letter M)
14 Superfreak (feat. Jazze Pha)
15 Stylin'
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