with LaFace and the lawsuit was settled. Soon thereafter, she released her third album The Heat (2000). A breakaway from the ballad-heavy and adult contemporary-oriented material on her previous albums, it sold four million copies worldwide and spawned the commercially successful, Grammy Award-winning single "He Wasn't Man Enough." The following year, Braxton released the Christmas album Snowflakes (2001) and began work on her next album More Than a Woman. A continuation of The Heat, it saw her reteaming with a variety of hip hop producers and rappers such as Irv Gotti, the Neptunes, Mannie Fresh, and Loon in favor of a "harder sound." In September 2002, while gearing up for the release of the album, Braxton discovered she was pregnant with her second child and she was subsequently forced to cancel many scheduled performances due to complications. Executives at Arista Records were reportedly frustrated with the timing of her second pregnancy since it prevented her from doing the extensive promotion for More Than A Woman, and though Braxton asked to push the album's release to 2003, the label refused. Released in November 2002, More Than A Woman garnered lackluster sales and failed to produce a hit single. Disappointed by its underperformance, which Braxton attributed to the little promotion activities that the Arista management had arranged for her due to her second pregnancy, she requested her manager Barry Hankerson to obtain a release for her from any future recording obligations to the label, and in March 2003, Braxton issued a press statement saying she was leaving Arista for Hankerson's Universal-distributed Blackground Records. Recording and conception Breaking away from her usual formula which saw her setting up projects with a variety of music producers, Braxton began recording her Blackground Records debut exclusively with husband Keri Lewis, who she had married in 2001. The former Mint Condition member had been involved to varying degrees in all of Braxton's three prior albums, also serving as an executive producer alongside Braxton and L.A. Reid on previous effort More Than a Woman (2002). Together, the pair worked on several tracks for Libra, about seven or eight songs which made the first record they turned in to Blackground and was majorly done by her and Lewis. However, Universal Records, Blackground's distributor in the United States at this time, was reportedly dissatisfied with the material and refused to consider releasing it. Similarly, Blackground's international partners questioned the commercial