Gerrick Kennedy - Didnt We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston

Copyright 2022 Gerrick Kennedy

Cover 2022 Abrams

Published in 2022 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021933481

ISBN: 978-1-4197-4969-8
eISBN: 978-1-64700-047-9

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by Brandy

The first time I heard Whitneys voice, she was singing Greatest Love of All. I felt feelings, emotions Id never before felt in my body and in my spirit. I dont quite have the words to describe what her voice did to me. How it was able to move me. And how I was suddenly able to see all of herher grace, her class, her beauty, her smile. She was an angel. She was the person I wanted to be exactly like. I knew I could never be exactly like Whitney Houston, but if I could just do a little bit of what she did with her voice, if I could make someone else feel the way she made me feel, then thats what I wanted to do. I was mesmerized by her. I spent my childhood practicing to all her records and imagining myself meeting her. Those were my dreams and prayers. I wanted to be a singer, and I wanted to meet Whitney Houston.

I was a young Black girl growing up in the South when Whitney took over the world. She was an effortless singer, and it inspired me to see someone with a voice as powerful as hers. She had every range you can imagineher falsetto was as strong as her head voice, and she could do all these amazing things with her tone. Whitney made me feel like anything was possible, even though everything she was doing had been so impossible for Black girls to achieve. She was the result of so much, and she was the reason why I could be everything I wanted to be, why any of us who came after her could be anything we wanted to be. Whitney was the blueprint. That was the magic of her. I remember going to my mother and telling her: I want to be as big as Whitney Houston. My mom encouraged me to dream big, but Black girls rarely saw the type of success Whitney achieved. Selling tens of millions of records, all the history she made, and all the accoladeswe didnt see many artists, let alone Black artists, reach the levels Whitney did. I dont think I wouldve made it as far as I was able to make it as an artist if she were not the idol I looked up to most. Whitney was magical. She openedliterallyevery door for every singer. Black, white, Hispanicanyone who wanted to do this has Whitney in their Top Five.

When I was twelve years old, I sang my way down the audience of The Tonight Show in order to get backstage. BeBe and CeCe Winans were there to perform, and I wanted to meet them, not just because I loved them so much, but because I knew they knew Whitney and I wanted to meet Whitney. Is there a way you can just call her, so I can talk to her? I begged CeCe. She actually called Whitney, and I got to talk to her. I got to hear her voice. I couldnt believe it was her on the other end telling me to have a great summer and sweetly listening as I professed my love of her and my dream to be just like her.

And then I got a chance to go to one of her concerts. I was up in the nosebleeds, but I told everybodyall the ushersthat I was going to be a big star and I was going to pay all their bills if they let me move down. Just like at The Tonight Show, my charm got me backstage. But Whitney was already gone by then. I was crushed; plus, I missed the entire concert trying to get to her. As I stood in the rain outside the Forum in tears, my mother looked me in the eyes and told me: Youre going to see Whitney at the top. Thats where youre going to meet her. Three years later, my first record came out and did pretty well. Whitney was hosting the 1995 Kids Choice Awards, and I was performing on the show. We were going to be on the same stage. At rehearsals, I saw this woman coming toward me. I couldnt believe that it was really her. It was really Whitney Houston. I was so taken aback that I ran from her. It just didnt feel real. When she embraced me, she embraced me as if she knew me. And she did know me, because of my music, and thats exactly what my mother had told me would happen in the parking lot after missing Whitneys concert trying to meet her. You will see her at the top. Whitney gave me her jacket to wear, and I hung out with her for the whole day. It was a dream, one of the best days of my life.

To experience that moment of meeting my idol just as all my dreams were coming true was surreal. And then Cinderella happened. First of all, I didnt realize that I was making history with the role. For me it was, Oh my God, Im working with Whitney Houston. Just a few years earlier, I was at the Forum trying to meet Whitney, crying because I couldnt. And then I was in the studio with her? There was something about Whitney that made me feel like I could completely be myself. I was so happy to be in the same studio with her, to both hear her sing and sing with her. My voice was not even fully developed yet, and I got to ask her to do all these things that I wanted to hear her do vocallyall the things I dreamed of hearing her do with her voice. When I look back now its like, Oh my God. I was the first Black Cinderella, and it was because of Whitney that I got a chance to play such an iconic role. It was because of her that I became the first Black Disney princess. I couldnt really appreciate it in the moment because I was busy doing the work. But my life had quite literally become a Cinderella story. My dreams had come trueexcept I didnt care about finding a prince, because I had met my fairy godmother.

***

Whitneys support helped me realize my potential to grow as an artist. Whitney saw me, and she pushed me. You need to sing from your gut, she would tell me. You need to sing from your heart and choose songs for you. Dont try to be me. Be you, and that is what will carry you through. I think about her in so many different ways, all the time. And I miss her so very much. Even when she lost her voice, when she lost it, Whitney still got up on that stage and sang from her heart, whether she could hit the notes or not. It speaks volumes that she still showed up and still tried to do what she had to dono matter what. She was a different kind of lady. To go through everything she went through and still give so much to us is unbelievable. But that was her magic.

The day she passed, I woke up in the morning and didnt like the way I felt. It was my birthday, and I was supposed to perform with Monica at Clive Daviss pre-Grammys gala. I dont know if I was just afraid to perform or nervous about letting people down, but I woke up not feeling very good. My voice was weird, and there was something so off about the energy of the day. I went to my voice doctor, and when I got back to the Beverly Hilton there were paramedics outside. Nick Gordon saw me and shouted,