Brandy Enlists the Hit-Making Talents of Rico Love for New Album

After signing her record deal with RCA/Chameleon Records, Brandy is getting serious about recording the best R&B album of her career. How serious? The songbird has acquired the songwriting talents of Rico Love for her next project.

The tunesmith's golden pen has blessed hits for such artists as Diddy-Dirty Money ('Hello Good Morning'), Nastasha Bedingfield ('Love Like This'), Usher ('There Goes My Baby') and Kelly Rowland ('Motivation'). Now he's ready to motivate Brandy into creating hit-making songs for her new album.

“I’m excited about the records I’ve done with her so far. I think we need to make it classic, just the music that people love,” he tells Rap-Up. “There’s no real formula to it. I just believe in a strong melody and a strong concept. You add a great singer, especially a singer that has had the success that Brandy’s had, and a hit song is a no-brainer.”

A no-brainer, indeed. But the music game has changed since Brandy stepped away in 2009. The 32-year-old singer has made a name for herself among the slew of R&B divas at the top of the music charts. So the question remains, can Brandy return to her once chart-topping glory? Rico thinks so.

“That’s what I’m going for, just classic R&B. Great concepts, great vocals," he says. “I [will] push her to the limit vocally, same way I push [Mary J. Blige], same way I push Usher, same way I push Mario [and] Kelly. I just push people. It’s like a coach who has the best player, you just want to make sure you run him to death in practice so that they can perform to the best of their ability when it’s game time."

Brandy, whose sixth album is due out in 2012, has also tapped R&B crooners Chris Brown and Frank Ocean for the project, as well. It looks as if Brandy is truly on a mission to get her groove back. We wish her luck and much success.