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 ESSENCE The following day, I watched Brandy receive the Legend Award at the ESSENCE Black Women in Music luncheon. Black women now in their 40s and early 50s did not merely watch Brandy grow up. 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.