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“Brandy, you really know how to pull out a crowd, it’s amazing. This is one of the biggest crowds we’ve ever had.” 

While Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Board Chair Jerry Neuman has given opening remarks at countless Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremonies over the past year, it was unlike him to be genuinely awestruck by the amount of people that gathered on March 30 in Hollywood for the unveiling of the 2,839th star. 

But the previous 2,838 Hollywood stars don’t share the same cultural contributions as Brandy Norwood.

The 47-year-old received the honor in the category of recording, a nod to her multi-platinum selling career spanning three decades, eight albums, a Grammy award for her record-setting “The Boy Is Mine” duet with Monica and countless other accolades.

In attendance for the festivities were a host of celebrity collaborators and friends, including Monica, Jenifer Lewis, Tisha Campbell, Erica Campbell, Warryn Cambell, Kehlani, and former co-stars Hosea Chancez, Marcus T. Paulk and Shar Jackson.

Also sitting in the crowd was songwriter-singer-producer extraordinaire Babyface, one of the ceremony’s featured speakers. He spoke about Brandy’s vocal prowess as a teenager, famously working with her on “Sittin’ Up in My Room” for the ‘Waiting to Exhale’ soundtrack starring her idol-turned-confidant Whitney Houston.

“When Whitney and I sat down we went over a list of who we wanted to be on the album, and yours was the first name that she said” he recalled. “She said you had one of the best voices she ever heard, and I agreed with her. You give one of the best feelings I’ve ever heard.”

As the ceremony progressed, however, it was evident that her impact far superseded any note she’s ever sung. In 1996, UPN debuted the sitcom “Moesha” about the typical teenage happenings of its braid-wearing, bright-eyed titular character in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood. The show, originally passed on by CBS, would eventually become UPN’s highest rated series, ending in 2001 after six seasons.

“To me, Brandy was and is the blueprint,” said LA native and “Insecure” creator Issa Rae, one of the ceremony’s featured speakers. “Without Brandy as ‘Moesha,’ there’s no ‘[The] Parkers,’ there’s no ‘Girlfriends,’ there’s no “Insecure.” Honestly, without Moesha, there’s no me as a writer.”

Rae, along with the ceremony’s MC Sibley Scoles, remarked about how representative Brandy was in both television and film in Rodger and Hammerstein’s version of “Cinderella.” Throughout the 90s, the Carson, CA raised beauty was known for rocking an array of braideddecoding="async" src="https://media.essence.com/vxcjywbwpa/uploads/2026/03/GettyImages-2268600901-scaled.jpg" alt="See Every Look From Brandy’s Walk Of Fame Ceremony" width="400" height="600" />Us singer Monica and US singer and actress Brandy pose with Brandy’s newly unveiled Walk of Fame star in Hollywood, California on March 30, 2026. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

Following Rae’s speech, Brandy stood on the podium alongside Neuman as he declared March 30 as “Brandy Day” in Hollywood, presenting her with a plaque to seal the occasion. Then, the wide-eyed, wonder->here. 

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