CDB: Yes and it’s a stressful chunk of time because it’s a job. You are with the pro- duction company for that entire period of time and you have to tailor your life to that time. Luckily, the show is a docuseries so they’re following our lives. Most of what we’re doing, they’re following. The more you have going on the better and I have too much going on this year! It’s making my edges fall out! The plus and the minus is that having a lot going on is great, but it is an ensemble cast, so a lot of things that are happening in your life, may not make it and may stay on the cutting room floor. They have to get equal amounts of everyone's story. So they pick and choose what makes it and we have no control over what makes it. So that’s always an interesting journey to go on to find out that right before it airs, they cut that whole story out and it’s like they shot 5 scenes for that and it won’t air.
AM: My favorite scenes are the confessionals because you’re glammed up and you’re talking about what you thought about something that is taking place on the episode. How do you come up with the outfits that you’re going to wear?
CDB: That’s always really fun! Shout out to my style team - my hair and my make-up glam team and my stylist. We come together and we decide together what we are going to do. So, one of them – sometimes it won’t be my hairstylist, my wardrobe stylist will send a hair look that she thinks would be amazing. My hairstylist, Stephanie will say that she loves it and my makeup artist Kendell will say that this is a great look to go with it. We then piece it together. One thing that people may not know is that we shoot the same look, multiple times. It’s always a challenge to find a look that is intricate and unique, but can be recreated. I’ve had braids twice now and braids are tricky because you shoot with them when they’re new and then you come back and shoot with you again in the same look in a month or month and a half and you’ve been running around in the world living with those braids and you need a touchup. But what I do, is that I have a headwrap when I have braids and you can’t tell when my roots start to show. I love confessionals, it’s like playing dress-up and you’re talking and chatting with your producer, saying what’s happening, being funny and being shady while having some champagne.
AM: It’s safe to assume that you will be back for the 7th season?
CDB: Well I think I saw somewhere that someone at BRAVO had to make an announcement that everyone was asked back because I made a little bit of a cryptic tweet and it had the Internet in an uproar.
There are just days where trolling is my ministry!
AM: It is what it is!
CDB: So yes, that was a funny day because my publicist told me that everyone was calling and E! wanted a statement and I said that they would be fine! So, I think that everybody is coming back.
AM: Like you said, you’re always using the platform to share your body of work and interests. We have seen your music career on the show and now DEEP SPACE, your debut album is out! How was that, you released it fall of last year – you’ve had over 2M streams – it’s amazing!
CDB: It’s crazy! It’s surreal because I had always seen something with music happening in my head and it really started when Chris and I got married and I knew I wanted to perform a song for him at our wedding.
AM: It was a beautiful song.
CDB: Thank you. I See You was my first recorded song. Originally I wasn’t going to do an original piece. I wanted to do a Toni Braxton song – she’s perfect at love songs. My wedding was being filmed for the show and my producer said, if you want us to capture you singing, you can’t do someone else’s song. For those that may not know about television is that there are so many rules and one of them is that you have to keep in mind the licensing. Toni Braxton is gong to demand the fees of herself, the producers, the writers and her label. That could be $40K or $100K for the show to play her song on the show and they said they weren’t going to pay that.
So I thought I would write the song and I worked with Veda Whisnant and my good friend Cliff as well as the gentleman who is now my music director, Aaron Hardin. They created I See You and that was the snowball effect and people were looking to work with me including Chucky Thompson, may he rest in peace. He did a disgustingly amazing job on the I See You the Go-go Remix – Go-go music has been a huge part of my life since I have lived in DC. It kind of snowballed from there and got bigger than what I thought it would. I knew I would put out a few songs, but then as I continued to move through the music industry, it went to doing an EP, to doing an album to performing live – it just materialized before my eyes. It’s still going!
AM: What’s it like to have Anita Baker, Nicki Minaj and Toni Braxton to bless your work? I’ve been a huge fan of Anita Baker’s work and have such a respect for her and obviously, Toni Braxton and Nicki Minaj are amazing as well. What has that been like?
CDB: I don’t even know! I have no words. When you grow up listening to these voices. For me who has a lower register, I never felt confident about my voice. Every- one celebrates Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston that has these soaring Soprano voices and I never felt like I heard anything like my voice until I heard Anita Baker, Toni Braxton and Brandy who I love. They liberated me and helped me to be proud of my voice and showed me what I could do with my voice and I studied their voices to really feel like I could sing and that I could use my voice to emote and be an artist. I owe them everything. What do you mean that Anita Baker knows who I am?
AM: I read that twice and was like, oh – Anita.
CDB: It’s still crazy to me. It’s like shut up, I can’t believe that.
AM: And yet, it happened!
You came off the Femme it Forward Tour – how was that? SWV, Faith Evans and Mya? That’s some legit superstar magic right there!
CDB: Not me – them! I’m still processing.
It's just unbelievable because again, these are Black women in R&B that wrote the soundtrack to so much of my life in the 90s and on. They wanted me to be with them on their stages, on their platforms and they respect me and they see me. That is heavy, but it’s also light in a way because I’m doing all day – that’s where I am with it. I wouldn’t be there if I wasn’t worthy and I’m just trying to live in the worthiness of it if that makes sense.
AM: It totally does! Once again, you’re manifesting up a storm. You’ve been on Netflix’s Family Reunion and being on BET’s The Christmas Lottery. The level of creativity that you have embraced and do, what does it feel like to know that it’s ok to embrace on all of these activities and to nibble on them, try them and to make it their own way. There are so many people that shy away from taking on so many things especially when they are not in the same area and I always encourage people to lean into it.
CDB: I feel like if I didn’t do all of the things that are inside of me, I would explode. It just has to come out. Some- times it doesn’t make sense and some- times I’m exhausted and sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing and I feel that sometimes.