Production and music
While on early stages, it was announced that Lopez was working once again with music producer Cory Rooney, who worked on most of her albums, and also Swizz Beatz. "I think I got her at a good time, she’s focused," Swizz said. "She got Marc [Anthony] by her side, he’s serious with the singing as well. And the energy is good, so I’m here to help make history." In July 2007, Yahoo! announced Timbaland, Jermaine Dupri, newcomers Lynn & Wade LLP (Michelle Bell and Peter Wade) and J.R. Rotem as the other producers. A month later, Billboard added Ryan Tedder, Midi Mafia and Bloodshy as further collaborators. She described Brave as "a little Jamiroquai, a little Sade. It's real feel-good music and not what everyone's expecting."
Brave is a pop, dance-pop, and R&B album. The opening track "Stay Together", co-written and produced by J.R. Rotem, is an anthem of monogamy where she declares that heartbreak and dating are so passé, that toughing it out is the new trend. "Heartbreaks are overrated, stay together, that's the new trend," insists Lopez on the dance song filled with breakbeats and synth fills. Second track "Forever" was described as "harem R&B", having a "gut-bucket dirge rhythms", in a song about making sure she is with her significant other for the rest of her life. "Hold It Don't Drop It" references the chugging bass line from "It Only Takes a Minute", the 1975 disco-funk song by Tavares. Fourth track and lead-single "Do It Well" was considered a "classic dance floor J-Lo with its hip-hop beat and disco sirens at the bridge." It samples the breakdown from Eddie Kendricks' 1973 smash "Keep on Truckin'." Ryan Tedder co-wrote and produced the song, stating: "I love that song. It's a lot of fun. I'd never done a song like it at that point. I took it as a challenge. I just looked at some of the top pop female artists at the time: JLo, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Britney before she went off the reservation. I thought, `I know I can write just as well as (their songwriters).' She heard it, flipped out, and it became the first single."
"Gotta Be There" samples the intro of Michael Jackson's 1971 Motown hit "I Wanna Be Where You Are" and references hip-hop dancefloor burner "Puerto Rico", while "Never Gonna Give Up" begins with almost two minutes of her voice weaving in and out of a string orchestra, with lyrics discussing about finding closure after a difficult breakup, which was alleged to be about her ex-fiancée Ben Affleck, especially the lyrics, "Forgiving him was the first thing I had to do in order to move on/Forgetting him was not as easy to do." The rock-etched "Mile in These Shoes" features spare verses, which seem to emerge from a "dank, empty warehouse", according to Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson, before the chorus opens up with a hip-hop/rock barrage of drums. Lyrically, the song thrusts a middle finger at the haters, with J.LO singing about they can't truly understand what it's like to be her until they walk a mile in her shoes. The midtempo synth-overloaded "The Way It Is" follows, with lively drums and string flourishes building toward a wall of synths, while midtempo "Be Mine" has "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" lyrics, including "Looking through a coffee table book at a small café on Broadway." In "I Need Love," Lopez convinces herself it's time to quit partying and settle down over zippy strings and percussion lifted from Bill Withers' "Use Me." The piano-spiked ballad "Wrong When You’re Gone" has softly clapping production, while the title track "Brave" finds Lopez singing about a newfound fearlessness, set to a steady beat and triumphant strings. The album closes with a remix of "Do It Well" featuring Ludacris.
