On this day in 2018, Toni Braxton released ‘Long As I Live‘ as the second single from her eighth studio album ‘Sex & Cigarettes’, which was her first solo album in eight years.
The song dominated Billboard’s Adult R&B Songs chart, peaking at #1 for five consecutive weeks, and spending 28 overall weeks on the chart. It was her eighth song to top that chart, and she has since earned a total of eleven #1s. Toni remains the only artist in history to have earned a #1 across four different decades on the chart. The song’s success also landed it at #15 on both the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Hot R&B Songs charts, and at #6 on 2018’s Adult R&B End Of Year chart.
Written by Toni, along with Antonio Dixon and Paul Boutin, ‘Long As I Live’ earned two Grammy Award nominations, and won for ‘Outstanding Song – Traditional’ at the 50th annual NAACP Image Awards.
The music video was Toni’s first to be directed by Miko Ho, who went on to also direct her next two official music videos, ‘Dance’ and ‘Gotta Move On’, as well as photograph the launch campaign for Toni’s vegan body care line ‘Nude Sugar’ in 2021.
The ‘Long As I Live’ video premiered on WEtv after the Season 6 premiere of Braxton Family Values. It features two of Toni’s sisters as background dancers, Tamar and Towanda, and model Herly Ulysse as Toni’s love interest, and has garnered over 86 million views on YouTube. It ranks as her fourth most-watched video on YouTube behind the hits ‘Un-Break My Heart’, ‘Just Be A Man About It’ and ‘He Wasn’t Man Enough’.
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