No one better captures heartbreak than soulful songstress Toni Braxton. The throaty R&B star emerged in the 1990's and garnered commercial success for her universally appealing, genre-spanning music. Braxton's most famous song to date, "Un-break My Heart" is one of the longest-running number one pop hits to date.Born to a minister father and opera-singer mother, Braxton was raised in Severn, Minnesota where she began singing at an early age in church with her four sisters. Non-secular music was forbidden in the Braxton household, but the young singer managed to sneak episodes of Soul Train and looked to Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan for her inspiration. Braxton was discovered at a gas station by songwriter Bill Pettaway, who helped her and her sisters sign a record deal with Arista Records in 1990. The girls were known simply as the Braxtons, and they released their first single, "The Good Life", that same year.The Braxtons didn't make a hit with "The Good Life", but Toni Braxton nonetheless caught the eye of L.A. Reid and Babyface, the songwriting team and recent founders of record label LaFace. Braxton became the first female artist to sign with LaFace, which was associated with Arista Records, in 1991. Braxton's first project as a solo artist was a duet with Babyface as well as her own song on the soundtrack of the 1992 film Boomerang. The duet, titled "Give U My Heart", went multi-platinum, prompting Braxton to release her debut, self-titled album in 1993. Toni Braxton climbed to the coveted number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and also reached number one on the Billboard 200 Chart.