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Video: Brandy Sings On The Subway, Nobody Cares
By
Emma Whitford
Published Jul 14, 2015
Modified Apr 9, 2018
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By
Emma Whitford
Published Jul 14, 2015
Modified Apr 9, 2018
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Absolutely no one recognized Brandy when she sang a Whitney Houston cover on the 1 train recently. Granted, she was wearing sunglass and a hoodie, and it's been over a decade since "What About Us?" and*Cinderella.*
Brandy Norwood, who moved to New York this spring to star as Roxie Hart in the Broadway musical Chicago, is pretty confident about her speedy transformation into a bonafide New Yorker. "I've hung out in Central Park, Times Square, ridden the bus, and I've gotten accustomed to taking the subway too," she wrote yesterday, on her blog. "I feel like a real New Yorker. I'm learning the streets and everything, y'all!"
Still, the video, uploaded yesterday to Youtube, reveals that the R&B singer and Broadway actress is still hammering out exactly what kind of New Yorker she is—the kind who demands attention, or the kind who realizes that no one cares, and adopts an impenetrable shield of indifference.
After singing Whitney Houston's "Home," staring directly into her friend Frank Silent's handheld, she looks around imploringly. "What ya'll thought of that? You thought that was cool? Hello?"
Then, "Nobody cares? Okay."
The faux-hysteria builds from there. "I just gave that my all, and nobody said nothing," Brandy says, pulling down her sunglasses to look straight into the camera. "Nobody on the train responded, and I feel very... emotional right now."
In a decidedly un-New York move, a nearby straphanger actually responds when Brandy asks him what he thought of her performance. "You gotta go out there and engage with the people," he says. "You're too into yourself. This is a warm city ready to engage you, but you gotta go out there and embrace it."
And, "Don't be scared! You've got talent. Go for it." Then, more realistically, "We've seen this a million times. You gotta do something different." Granted, it's hard to impress a crowd that's truly seen it all.
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Emma Whitford
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