Related Articles
A month and change into quarantine, the number of music videos shot at home is starting to swell. Here’s Drake parading around his palatial mansion; there’s the rising band Younger Hunger making mayhem in their modest backyard. Toni Braxton offered up a homemade clip of her own on Friday: a somber video for her new single “Do It” shot entirely on her phone.
Braxton co-wrote “Do It” with her longtime collaborator Babyface — who also had a hand in early classics like “Another Sad Love Song” and “You’re Making Me High” — as well as Antonio Dixon and Percy Bady. The single is glacial but sweeping, a slow-rolling ballad that practically commands a friend to leave a crumbling relationship: “He ain’t gonna change/If you take him back, it’s gonna be the same/Just do what you need to do.” Dixon, who also produced the track, had to do some of the final mixing sessions over Zoom due to the shelter-in-place orders that were handed down in California last month.
In the niche radio format known as “Urban Adult Contemporary,” which treasures pre-trap R&B, Braxton was greeted like a returning hero: “Do It” debuted at Number 13 on the UAC chart, according to Mediabase, picking up 874 spins in a week and reaching an audience of over six million. The single is part of an upcoming album that does not yet have a release date.
