But more than anything, she seems isolated. On most awards-show nights, Braxton--the daughter of a Severn, Md., apostolic minister--would be on stage, the center of attention in one of her signature dresses, the sort of show-stopping number that reveals more than it covers. Tonight, though, she's undercover, choosing to lie low in the wake of her bankruptcy news. (The day before, she bagged plans to attend the Super Bowl, hoping to avoid the inevitable questions.) Braxton moves to the kitchen for a bite and turns on the tube just in time to catch Mariah Carey's performance on the music awards. Absently, she joins in, quietly singing along as Carey belts out another sad love song. Sadness, oddly, is one emotion Braxton refuses to express. How can she be so collected? "Aren't you supposed to be?" she asks.
The following day, Barry Hankerson shows up for lunch at West Hollywood's Mondrian Hotel to explain his client's case in detail. A poker-faced man who was once married to Gladys Knight, Hankerson is both a manager (to clients such as crooner R. Kelly) and the head of his own label, BlackGround (home to teen sensation Aaliyah). His admirers call him a bare-knuckle negotiator; his detractors see him as opportunistic. He describes himself as a "nemesis" of the music industry's clubby status quo. "Let me tell you something, man," says Hankerson, who began repping Braxton last November, after she fired her managers of three years, Randy Phillips and Arnold Stiefel. "People get so yoked in this business. These kids get these deals that mean nothing."
Hankerson's argument--that Braxton got a bum deal relative to the success of her albums--sounds convincing. In 1991, the singer, who had earlier performed as part of an unsuccessful sister group called the Braxtons, signed as a solo act with LaFace. The contract for her first album specified that she receive a royalty of 12 percent (which, technically, should have paid Braxton about $1.08 per album sold)--not an unusual rate for unproven talent. It's if and when that first album is a hit that an artist is in the position to negotiate a sweeter deal.
Braxton's first album was a hit, selling 4.8 million copies in the U.S., but, according to Hankerson, LaFace was stingy with the sugar. In 1994 LaFace bumped Braxton's royalty rate to 15 percent. But even that increase left her earning less than the industry standard at the time. According to the 1994 edition of music lawyer Don Passman's book All You Need to Know About the Music Business--widely considered the bible on record contracts--Braxton's new rate was comparable to that of a "mid-level" artist. What does Passman define as mid-level? A performer who's sold just 200,000 to 500,000 albums. Braxton had moved almost 10 times that many. (Ironically, Passman counts LaFace among his clients.) As a rival label head puts it: "She got screwed--definitely."
On top of that, Braxton didn't take home her full royalty. Lopped off her profits was Babyface and Reid's standard 5 percent producer's fee. That's in addition to the money they earned off Braxton's albums as 50 percent shareholders of LaFace. "They end up making more than she does," says Hankerson. He believes that Arista and LaFace, which he estimates netted $60-70 million off Braxton's work, should have absorbed a portion of the producer's fees. "If you sell a lot of records, you should make a lot of money," he says. "Somebody is, you know? So why not Toni? The one who's sung the song?"
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