When Babyface hops on a Zoom call in September, he’s just wrapping up New York Fashion Week. He’s attended shows by Tommy Hilfiger, Laquan Smith, and Puma and been photographed alongside celebrities new and seasoned. This is the life he’s been living for the better part of five decades as one of our most preeminent and prolific song-crafters. The music he helped usher into the world — whether through his pen and production or via LaFace, the label he co-founded with L.A. Reid — has inspired multiple generations craving that ’90s R&B sound; all told, there are few catalogues that rival his.
How to choose even from the list of sessions he calls “iconic,†which includes the likes of Stevie Wonder, Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Aretha Franklin? “Where I’m from, it was like I never saw myself being in that room with these people,†he says. “The fact that they’re sitting there listening to guidance from me, it’s kind of crazy.†And yet, he still has more to offer. His latest release, Girls Night Out (out October 28), finds him collaborating with some of the most beloved voices in R&B today, from Kehlani and Ari Lennox to Baby Tate and Doechii. He may well have been the soundtrack of many of their childhoods, but he’s never been afraid to allow those who’ve come after to light his path forward.
Thinking back over his accomplishments, there’s not any one song, album, or collaboration that sticks out. Rather, it’s the longevity of them all, rediscovered and immortalized again and again. “When you see on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube crowds of people singing the words that you’ve written, when the #CanWeTalkChallenge happened and you saw a whole class … singing every word of ‘Can We Talk’ and singing it strong — that’s humbling,†he says, adding that even at his own shows, the fans often know the words better than he does. “That’s the thing that sticks with you above everything, above any award — when you have proof right in front of your face that you actually did touch people, that you were a part of their lives.â€
Most unexpected collaboration
I think when I first worked with Barbra Streisand. That was not a person that I thought I’d go in the studio with. I ran into her at a dinner party at someone’s house, I think Carole Bayer Sager’s. She came up to me and told me that she was a huge fan and she loved the Waiting to Exhale project. I was just surprised that she was even listening to anything like that. She said to me, “I’d love to work with you one day.†I thought it was lip service. Then actually, I got the call years later to go in and do some work with her, so that was quite surprising, because sometimes you don’t expect people from a different genre of music to actually listen to you.
Most slept-on LaFace release
This song called “Last Night†from a group called Az Yet that was on LaFace. Had it been done under a different group, it would’ve been a much bigger song. With Boyz II Men, it could have been a No. 1 pop song. Az Yet just didn’t catch on. They were kind of a Boyz II Men kind of band, but they couldn’t really take it all the way. But there were things that were interesting [in that group], like Kenny Terry, who was the bass voice. I don’t know that you can find anybody that sings like him.
The perfect song-and-artist pairing
Maybe “Breathe Again†with Toni Braxton because I don’t know that anybody would’ve been able to pull that one off that way. When I was initially writing the chorus, it was written for another artist. And then as I was starting to put it together, it just hit me like, Whoa, this is not for this artist. It just felt like it was screaming Toni Braxton. When she came in and did it, it was magical. Sometimes you can work on something and imagine another artist singing it, but then it comes out better than what you even imagine. And that was definitely one of those situations.
Also, I would say “End of the Road†with Boyz II Men. They were one of the first groups that we worked with. After I did the demo I thought, Oh this is a pretty good song. I even considered keeping it for myself. But it was written for them — and when they started singing it you knew why it was written for them. There was no way that I could have kept that song. But there was also no way we had any idea of what they could bring to the table. I don’t think they knew what they could bring to the table on it. It was all brand new. They weren’t doing music like that at that point. It was the beginning of helping to create a style for them, and it ended up being their most successful song. And none of us saw that coming.
Favorite Whitney Houston vocal
It’s between “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)†and “I’m Your Baby Tonight.†“Exhale†because of just the sweetness that she brought to it and just, I think she made “shoop shoop†come alive. She made everybody want to sing “shoop shoop.†Initially I was thinking I was going to have to put some other kind of lyric in there, but it didn’t require it with her vocals. That’s what made it all special. The tone of her voice and the texture of her voice, it seemed like she had matured even more. And it just gave the song this velvety feel that I don’t know that anybody else could have done it.
Then, “I’m Your Baby Tonight,†just the very end when she’s rapidly going through these lyrics and not missing a beat, that was impressive. The first time in the studio with Whitney Houston, when you’re a beginning producer — not completely beginning, but still beginning as it related to working with a superstar like that — you’re a little nervous to go in there. Sometimes you’re nervous ‘cause you hope that the artist is as good as you think they are. But sometimes you get kind of disappointed — not just disappointed in their talent but also in their personality and how hard it is to work with them. But Whitney was amazing. She was great fun and she sounded even better than what we imagined. It made the process so much easier.
“I’m Your Baby Tonight†was written in pretty much before she came, but there was a part that I had to write on the end really quickly cause she wanted to go to the mall. It was easy to do it because she wasn’t… I guess we were just kind of vibing at that particular point and it wasn’t a task. And she just killed it. I wasn’t that used to it at that point for somebody to come in and just slay it like that.
Favorite Boyz II Men arrangement
It was a song that really wasn’t that popular. It was a silly little song called “Girl in the Life Magazine.†I liked the harmonies. It was fun to do it, but we probably shouldn’t have said Life magazine, it should have been Vibe magazine.
Biggest difference in his songwriting approach from then to now
Approach then, I wrote by myself. It was all in my head and what I thought they would be thinking of when they would sing, and this new project [Girls Night Out], we wrote it together. I asked the singers what they were thinking and we wrote those ideas out together. So it wasn’t just my thoughts, it was actually the girls’ thoughts — and they’re all good writers so it’s far different in that way. It’s really the voice from the girls, and before it was my interpretation of what women would want to hear or want to sing.
Most inspiring aspect of the state of R&B currently
What I find inspiring is that for so long we lived on this whole idea that if you’re not at the top of the charts, then you don’t matter, and it depended on the radio. Well, we have Summer Walker out there proving that wrong. She’s not at the top of radio all the time — she doesn’t have to be, but she’s selling out everywhere she goes. We have Kehlani doing the same thing, where they don’t really care as much about the charts, their streaming is crazy. Where radio used to be the gatekeeper and if you couldn’t get through radio and then that’s it, kids are proving today that you don’t quite need that. There’s other ways to get there, and so that gives a certain amount of independence. It gives them power because they don’t have to wait for the record company to decide what’s going to be their single. They can make those decisions themselves because they’re in the driver’s seat. I think that’s an amazing thing for every artist. It doesn’t make it any easier, by the way, to cut through because every week there’s 60,000 songs that are released. In some cases, the record company’s very important to help you get through all the noise, but when you can get through without it and if you can catch that glimpse, it’s more of a possibility. That wasn’t a possibility ever before. I’m encouraged by that, and I’m encouraged by the fact that everybody has their own voice.
I think that music has changed. I don’t think everybody thinks that it all has to be exactly the same. There are different artists that got their vibe and they stick with it. I’m taking my daughter to go see Giveon tonight. She’s a huge fan, and I’ve become a bigger fan because I have to listen to it every morning going to school, but I appreciate him and what he does and how he phrases things and says things in a different way, and so you learn from it. It’s a learning experience all the time.
Quintessential Babyface song
I think the song that I’m probably most recognized for is “Whip Appeal†— between that one and “Every Time I Close My Eyes†and “When Can I See You.†The thing about “Whip Appeal†was, I had heard the phrase and then I went back to my house to write it. I was trying to write in a Prince kind of way. Imagine what would Prince do. And that’s how I came up with the first chords. And it turned into this kind of gospel thing. It wasn’t like I had it all in my head. It just came together as I put the chords together trying to tell the story. And I actually wrote it myself. I gave Pebbles co-writing credit because I heard her say the phrase.
The interesting thing I think that because of the style that I’ve written in, a lot of the songs that I’ve even written for other people, they still think it’s Babyface. I look at it like my artistry is my songwriting, and a piece of me is in every one of those things that I do with everyone else.
Most memorable thing about working with Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston on “When You Believeâ€
Well, they did not record together. It was done separately. The one great thing that came out of that more than anything is that I was asked to be the producer, because they both asked for me and neither of them were going to do it from what I understand unless I was the producer. Mariah’s producer was Walter Afanasieff at the time and did most of her stuff and Whitney’s was David Foster. So neither one of them trusted those producers; Whitney wouldn’t have trusted Walter and Mariah wouldn’t have trusted David. So I was Switzerland, and I was able to go in there and they both felt safe that I would do the best for them. It was a little bit of work to get to that point. We had a photo op together where they were in the studio together, but they did not sing together that time. That was just making it look like they sung together.
Favorite album to produce
I would say Waiting to Exhale would be that. The whole process of writing music from top to bottom for a film was something I had never done, and something I was pretty nervous about. But I had people that were in my corner the whole way through, which was basically Forrest Whitaker and Robert Craft, who was in charge of music over at Fox. So having that and just being able to just be free to come up with whatever, it made that process comfortable. Forest would give me clips from the film to look at and say, “Okay, I need something for this.†Because the film wasn’t done, I was doing it as the movie was being made. He would play me pieces of what he thought he wanted in there, Something like this, something like that. So I had to come behind it and come with something. It was amazing because he never turned anything down. It was the first project that I ever turned into Clive Davis once it was done where Clive Davis did not have one note.
The song that felt like you made it
It would be “Two Occasions†— the reaction when we played it live and how people reacted to it. Because on our very first tour, we were out with Luther Vandross and DeBarge, and we were getting killed nightly. They just loved DeBarge, and every time they’d say “next up DeBarge,†the house would rumble and we just feel like little ants, like, get off the stage. We never got that rumble. But then, when we finally did “Two Occasions†and I played those first chords — I remember it was at the Superdome, like 40,000 people out there — and we finally heard the DeBarge rumble. That was the moment where we was like, Wait a minute, we might have something here.
Biggest secret to his career longevity
I don’t know. I think keeping an open mind and listening and don’t think that you’re right all the time. If I heard something that I didn’t think was great but everybody else is loving it, then I wouldn’t hate on it. I’d keep on listening to try to figure out, Okay, what is it that everybody loves about it? Then sooner or later, I would get it and say, “Okay, that makes sense.†Then I’d learned how to make it feel good to me. R&B is definitely different today. When you send a young artist in the studio today, they always sing behind the beat now. It’s a natural thing that they do. That isn’t something that’s easy to do, by the way, but it’s how they live, how they learn it, how they listen. So if you take someone that’s older and you put them in, they’re going to be singing in front of the beat at this particular point and it won’t feel as relaxed and cool … I think songs today are more conversations than they are songs. So it doesn’t call for a big bridge or anything, because the bridge has been happening throughout the whole song, because they’re going hard from the beginning to the end; it’s the whole idea of toxic relationships and how you go at it. You mad and so you can’t get no madder on the bridge, you already mad.
But R&B is not dead, it’s forever changing, and it goes into other generations and they hear it a little bit differently than we hear it. I feel like my job is to always try to understand that and not fight it but roll with it and never go to the point to where I’m trying to do it completely myself, where it looks like I’m out of context.