I watched Brandy and Monica close the Superdome with a show honoring both their catalogs and the history connecting them. Source: Bennett Raglin / Getty Images for ESSENCEThe following day, I watched Brandy receive the Legend Award at the ESSENCE Black Women in Music luncheon. Brandy, Whitney, and Chadwick left bodies of work large enough to survive public scrutiny. That matters in a culture determined to construct the meaning of Black bodies before Black people can define ourselves. The timeline was debating whether Brandy had become too small while Brandy was telling us she had finally stopped shrinking.