Babyface is showing off his massive catalog of hits on a “tiny” stage, and he’s as smooth as ever.
Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds commanded the mic for the latest NPR Tiny Desk Concert video series (now streaming), in honor of June’s Black Music Month.
The performance, which lasted just shy of 30 minutes, at the NPR Washington, D.C. studio chronicled decades of the singer, producer and songwriter’s greatest hits, written for himself and other superstars, including his 1989 love ballad “Whip Appeal,” Whitney Houston’s “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)” and Tevin Campbell’s “Can We Talk.”
Babyface, 64, opened his set with “Two Occasions,” which he originally performed with his former group The Deele.
Before closing the performance with “Exhale,” he also paid tribute to Houston, calling the late singer “one of the greatest artists ever.”
“The funny thing about this song, when I worked with Whitney on ‘Exhale’ … originally when we sat down to talk about doing the project, she wasn’t going to sing at all,” he said of the 1995 film starring Houston and Angela Bassett, for which he wrote and produced the soundtrack. “She said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to do this, Face. You do the music, and we’ll see what happens.’ For the longest time I hadn’t started to write this song because I didn’t know whether she was going to sing. And then finally she said she was going to sing, and that kind of explains why on the chorus there’s no real lyrics, because I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”
He recalled that “when she heard it, she said, ‘You finally ran out of words, Face, you done finally ran out of words.’ But it felt so good, and I have to tell you the only reason it felt so good was because it was Whitney Houston.”
R&B singers Tank, Chanté Moore and Avery Wilson joined Babyface on vocals. His band consisted of music director Erskine Hawkins III on the keyboards, Antoine Porter on guitar, Walt Barnes Jr. on bass and Reggie Regg playing drums.
Before launching into Karyn White’s “Superwoman,” for which Moore took over lead singing duties, Babyface said that, growing up, “I was always falling in love and getting my heart broke and stuff.” (That garnered “awwws” from the crowd.) “I would be writing these sad songs, and I realized I was probably feeling the same hurt of all the girls that you was hurting,” he said, jokingly gesturing to Tank.
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Recalling another R&B songstress, Babyface remembered working with Mary J. Blige on “Not Gon’ Cry” for “Waiting to Exhale.”
“I got to work with all these different women on the project,” Babyface said. “It was so crazy, because everybody was so different from each other, and I remember when I went to New York to work on this song, it was the first time for me working with (her). Well, she’s a queen and fabulous, and she called me Mr. Face. It was so cool to work with her and it was an incredible experience. I think she’s the one.”
As he started playing 1993’s “Can We Talk,” Babyface clarified any misconceptions: “This song was, honest to God, originally and always planned to be written for this kid named Tevin Campbell.”
Last June, Usher’s Tiny Desk Concert took the internet by storm with his acoustic renditions of his chart-topping songs, celebrating the 25th anniversary of his sophomore album “My Way.”
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Watch Babyface’s Tiny Desk Concert
Babyface Tiny Desk Concert set list
- “Two Occasions”
- “Whip Appeal”
- “Superwoman”
- “Take A Bow”
- “Not Gon’ Cry”
- “Can We Talk”
- “Change the World”
- “Thnks fr th Mmrs”
- “I’ll Make Love To You”
- “End Of The Road”
- “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)”
