Babyface

32:00It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form. And that's really what this season's about. Little moments of pairing, little moments of connection. Sharing a song, sharing a story, sharing a caramel brulee latte. Because this season and every season, together, is the best place to be. Come together over your holiday favorites at Starbucks. You want your master's degree? You know you can earn it. But life gets busy. The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected. American Public University was built for all of it. With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life.

32:39Start your master's journey today at apu.apus.edu. You want it? Come get it at APU. If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. That's why LinkedIn Jobs is stepping things up with their new AI assistant so you can feel confident you're finding top talent that you can't find anywhere else. The best part is those great candidates are already on LinkedIn. In fact, employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. That's a big deal when every hire counts.

33:13Hiring doesn't have to be complicated. With LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant, you can skip the confusing steps in recruiting jargon. It filters through applicants based on criteria you've set for your role and surfaces only the best matches so you're not stuck sorting through a mountain of resumes. When you have a business to run, you don't have hours to spend on hiring and you don't want to just wait around hoping the right person stumbles upon your job. That's why LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant suggests 25 great fit candidates daily so you can invite them to apply and keep things moving. Hire right the first time.

33:46Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash broken, then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash broken to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. We're back with more of my conversation with Babyface. What was the creation of Girls' Night Out like? I can hear Babyface on this new record, but to your point, I can definitely also hear you trying to do what you do within the context of what the singers now are doing. Their world, yeah. The actual concept of Girls' Night Out came from my partner who helped me put the record together.

34:27It was Rika. and so she had come to me and said you know that's the way it did verses uh and versus i i got so many more new followers and a lot of younger ones and and so she was like you know you got to figure out a way to connect with them you get you know you can't just do what you've done before because it won't really speak to them so maybe the best way to connect with them when you're writing and everything is to work with younger artists like Excel. Maybe you work with girls again and you connect that way, but don't just write it for them, write with them, you know, collaborate with them.

35:08Make sure that you're speaking their language and they're speaking and, and you guys can actually work together. And that's ultimately what it came down to. We went in the studio with each artist, basically had a day to do it, a day to write it and a day to get the basic recording. You'd bring in a concept maybe? No, we'd start right there. Go fresh. Was it nerve-wracking to go in like that? No, it was either going to work or not. There was no pressure. It was like we tried and if it didn't work, some people we came, we couldn't figure it out. And some people we figured it out but we had to come back and finish it up in terms of overdubs.

35:49But the basic idea of every song was always done in that day. Wow. And that was kind of the magic of it a little bit. I mean, look, do I feel like I did an album full of hits? No. I did an album full of moments. And those moments that we, whatever happened in that moment, that's what we came out with. And we tried to make it the best that it could be. Would you think about music previously like that? Like, oh, is this an album full of hits versus, or were you always doing moments? Well, sometimes you do want to necessarily do hits. You do want to do something that's going to really hit everybody.

36:24Connect. Hit everybody in the room. Yeah. And if it's not there, then you want to keep working on it and get it. And we didn't have that luxury. We just kind of like, this is it. This is our moment and we'll roll with it. Yeah. So in that sense, do I think I could have maybe even made it better? Yeah, I could have had the time. But we just took that moment and that was kind of like the experience. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And because of that, also not just working with the girls, but also working with some younger producers that come with tracks and things that allow me to also kind of like get into that and build from there as well.

37:02So it was all an effort of trying to speak to an audience that I don't normally speak to, but speak to them through another form of artistry, so to say. Yeah. Collaboration. Yeah, yeah. out of any of those collaborations do you think you forged any you know lasting relationships yes no question and uh i'm sure we'll do more work together and that that's great so i think that the the process was fun and the results was you know came out nice so came out great i gotta say like you know it's interesting rolling stone recently put out like a list of like 200 greatest singers i looked at the list i was like yeah it's not it's like something i read that one that makes sense to me and some other things but i sort of make it just jotting down like what do i think are my favorite singers and i started putting them down i'm like man you know like maybe it's just a time thing but i didn't really have anyone beyond the 90s and i i didn't start to think i don't think it was because i'm biased towards that music but and not that there's no good r &b singers now i think there's some great singers but there's no vehicle sometimes i think these for like for a great vocalist to show how great their vocals are yeah but it sounds to me on this record like you really i don't know i realized like man you really know how to work with singers because these days there's a lot of effects on voices and things but you still found a way to kind of create something where they could really drive the song man yeah i think it's it's that's just emotion so and that's it's not about how many riffs you do or anything it's really just about how emotional can you get on it to feel like you've been given something.

38:35There are a lot of really good vocalists, girls that can sing today. There's a lot of them. And it's like there weren't that many back in the day. We could just count on. There was Brandy, there was Monica, there was Whitney, Deborah Cox. We had a few, but not as many as there are today. There's so many girls. that can really blow, and people that we don't know. And even just as many that you can find on TikTok, the singing wasn't like that before. Also, the difference in terms of how it used to be so rare to find, whether it's a white kid or that they could sing, sing, and really have riffs. And that changed completely.

39:27you know like you could find so many of these kids like these young white kids that can like clearly blow and that's it sounds like they grew up on gospel sometimes and that was clearly just left for you know initially there was Tina Marie who was that girl then right Sheena and Sheena she got a little pass sometimes Lisa Stansbell got a little bit of a pass but not clearly not like not like Tina not like Tina not like Celine Dion who came and just kind of tore it up and really have like could move that voice where where Whitney would say okay she can sing yeah right so and that that all changed and I think I think it was McDonald's but anyway you think it was McDonald's?

40:19yeah I'm just I'm loving it something happened something was in the water but I think overall just I mean what the real answer is is that black music and and R &B so it became so infectious that when people listen to things enough that it becomes part of them yeah you know and the same thing applies for even like overseas even for like the K-pop yeah oh man come on and that was you man I mean I feel like we should say that flat out because you may not want to, you know, and others and others. I was in the group with other people. And others. No question, help influence. It's like, there was a point R &B was on the charts as like race music, you know, by the nineties.

41:09Nineties, it was, it was all included. Nineties, it was, there was not, you couldn't tell the difference hardly between the R &B chart and the pop chart. Yeah. Because what was black was also pop as well. Yeah. Bobby Brown and Boyz II Men and you know even I had some things that were in pop at the top tens that I didn't know that Whippin' Peel was a top ten pop pick. You won't have them of the year, 1990, 1991, 1990? I didn't know it even touched that stuff so because I always thought of it just R &B so but there was a point when it was that now it's changed again where I mean hip hop is the one thing that's you always got to keep watching things because you don't know how things will slide but But the influence is crazy and it has been and always has been.

42:00So when people speak of the future of R &B and the future of just black music in general, it's always here because it's always influencing. It always is. And what's funny, man, it's like, you know, rock and roll and hip hop take a lot of air out of the room. Yeah. And they're great, you know, no doubt. But when you think about it, R &B really is like the great American art form. because if you go back 1940, Louis Jordan, you go 1950s, Ray Charles, 1960, you got Motown, Stax, all those great Atlantic artists in the 70s with Stevie finally really coming out, Earth, Wind & Fire, and then the 80s.

42:38Come on, man. R &B is kind of always right there. It started here. It's in everything. It always has been. And I think that people get tunnel vision on just one particular sound and one particular thing. I love the changes and I love to see people experimenting with it and letting it grow. Yeah. Can I play a Deal song? Sure. Sweet November? Yeah. I'm going to play just a little bit of it. I feel like this has something to do with your name. But baby, sweet November will tell us a story That will bring us back the love that we both know Wow, man. That's a great song. I wrote that right out of high school.

43:34Out of high school? Yeah, it was because I was a man-child, so I was second year or something, 78 or so, 78, 79, right in that time. says it was a girl it was like this one girl she was like the most while we were in high school we were really good friends and there's no way I would have ever thought I would have been with her but when I got out of high school we started talking and then we actually started dating I remember Daryl was like how is this even happening how do you have her and then I remember we went to go see Brooke Shields endless love. We saw endless love together. And then something happened, I think, right before we were going away in Manchild, all of a sudden she stopped calling me and I couldn't reach her.

44:32And I don't know what happened, but it was just like, we were just like broken up. And then there was no cell phones. There was no good, you couldn't reach her on the phone. No social media. It was just done. And I was really messed up about it. And that's when I wrote this, you know, because, you know, that was the time period. It was in the fall. And so then I was thinking maybe when I come back, maybe this November, we'll get back together and find it. So that was actually a love song that was written way back then. And would you have written the words or would you write the words first? I sat with the piano and wrote it.

45:09I sat with the piano. Yeah. Wow. because it's kind of beautiful even just divorced from the music if you just look at the words it's high level when autumn first arrived you were my lady it was the second rain of autumn we shared a feeling we started dating and then all of a sudden I remember it was raining and looks like something's going to happen here which that's an interesting song because that the history of this song too is also that it's the song that ultimately got me to be able to sing on the Deal album. Because I did this, I recorded this song, did the demo. I had always had this song, but when I got on the Deal, I actually demoed it.

45:57And this isn't very far from the demo at all. And so when we were working on the second album for the Deal, Reggie Calloway from Midnight Star was supposed to produce our album, and he did not because they had fell out with our manager, and our manager was the same manager they had, so they didn't want to have anything to do with this. So it was suddenly in our hands, me and L.A.'s hands, Dick Griffey said, you guys should produce it. And we were a little afraid, but we thought we'd try. And this song I had submitted to Dick Griffey to see if I could place it on the whispers. I also sent this song, gave this song to Luther, hoping that he would sing it.

46:45Wow. And he never answered on it, but I got a cassette tape to him so he would potentially do it too. Wow. And so it never got to the whispers because Dick Griffey had heard it, and he said, who is this? And they told him, well, this is Kenny. I wasn't baby-faced yet. Kenny M. Yeah. And he goes, this is Kenny. And he goes, so why give this whispers? Why don't you guys do this song on your album? And then L.A. says, well, we don't have anybody that can sing it. I said, what are you talking about? You got, who's singing this? He said, oh, it's Kenny singing it. He said, well, how come he ain't singing it?

47:22He said, because he's not a lead singer. And Dick said, that's stupid. He should be singing. Then L.A. had to have a group meeting to see if I could sing. and once they had the group meeting they voted me not to sing still I had no problem with it because I wasn't trying to be a singer every time I was doing these songs it wasn't like I was thinking I was going to do a record with it it's just me writing songs it's what you do and so Dick Griffey came back and said well if this ain't on the album, if he ain't singing it then you guys ain't got no album so that's how I was able to sing Sweet November on that album what were they saying you can't sing you're not a leader it's a beautiful vocal they didn't want me to sing because they were already two lead singers got it okay so it was a it's a power thing yeah you know like look we got our singers we don't need any any more confusion and I got that I wasn't I did not join the group to be a singer yeah at all and so Sweet November is ended up being that song that, you know, heartfelt song, but a song that ultimately got me to start singing in the group to begin with.

48:38And it kind of solidified your name, right? Well, the name had nothing to do with that. The name just came because everybody in the deal had a great name. It was L.A., K.O., D., Carlos, Stick, and Kenny Edmonds. And we were looking around trying to find names. We tried Romeo, not really it, and a couple other names there starting. Nothing was sticking until one day L.A. and K.O. were in the studio working with Bootsy, helping Bootsy do a demo. And I walked in the studio, and Bootsy looks at me and goes, Babyface. And that was kind of like where it started. I didn't like the name. I thought it was a little soft, and I didn't like it at all, but he said Babyface anyway.

49:27So then, this was probably in 85, so much after the song. So we're like in now 85, we're out on tour. So D goes one night. I would sing this song every night. One night, he'd go, that's Kenny Edmonds. Give it up to Kenny Edmonds. And there'd be a little bit of love, a little bit of something. But then one night, he said, give it up to Babyface. it was a completely different reaction and that night a whole bunch of girls came back looking for Babyface I sung that song every night the same I swear it was not any different but singing it as Babyface suddenly made it a whole other thing which just taught us a lesson of just being commercial and name and everything branding so it was a lesson and I became very comfortable when the girls came back I was comfortable with having the name babyface at that point.

50:25Yeah. No questions. So that song was really personal. Yeah. Exhale was more from watching the movie. Watching the movie. You don't necessarily have to write from personal experience. You can, but you can watch others. No, yeah. It's really about watching others and how they feel and how they imagining having to go through that. I'm always asked, how are you able to write for women? Yeah. And I said, if you just kind of think of it and think of whatever they go through and think of how you'd feel. It's not that hard to figure out, damn, that's fucked up. I feel like I'll write about that. And as a kid that was always falling in love and thinking I was in love.

51:11Feeling like you were in love. That's what it was. My very first song was about a girl named Rhonda Newbold, I always say her name, and that was in Here I Go Falling in Love Again. And the second song that I wrote that I clearly remember was about the same girl, which was two years later from sixth grade to eighth grade because she broke my heart, was called The Bitter Taste of Life. Oh. Those are feelings that I had and everything was exaggerated. I had written a song called So Shy. So there would be pieces of things, of songs that I would write. I wrote a song called Tanita, wrote a song called Shelly.

51:52one of the best songs I ever wrote was a song called Last Song Forever, which was I wrote that when I was in my senior year. Never recorded it. I think I let a group record it as if they turned it into a gospel. Do you remember any of it? Yeah. Could you play a little of it? I don't know what my voice is like right now. Here we go.

52:25Then I think of Special moments Those were special times You told me you cared

52:37You know when all it comes The leaves will float away I hope you know by now My love will always stay I know I will love you forever You should know my love can't get no better Last song forever I couldn't love you no better Um, how's it go? Than I do right now And now it's forever That's a little piece of it. So that was in my senior year. Wrote that song for a girl that liked me for a long time. And it's funny, it's interesting. It was a white girl that liked me. and in high school at that time it was like you don't do that yeah and we were friends and we did music together we liked doing music together and Daryl and everybody we'd go to our house and write music and create music so we always vibed with each other and she really got a crush on me she was like she lived really close to the school and I lived so far away she was like asking let me come over to your house and pick you up and take you to school in the morning.

54:11And she wanted to do everything in the world for me. And I was like, that's great, but I didn't want this girl to, I didn't want to see her in my neighborhood picking me up and stuff. And so I was like, and I just realized at the point, I was like being very, it was almost like reverse racism to a certain extent for me. And I was like. Well, it would have brought a lot of heat, I'm sure. Yeah, it would have brought heat. And back then, they call you Toms and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. but in our school that was this you know it wasn't like it was it never happened but it would sometimes so one point she'd gone away to on a spring trip so she went down to florida or something and when she was gone i really missed her so i thought to myself you know what forget it i don't care i don't care what what color she is i don't care when she comes back i'm gonna tell her let's do this yeah and she came back she had a tan she was fine as a but i waited too long when she came back she had changed at that point she wasn't interested anymore because she had tried and so she she finally met someone else yeah i waited too long and then that was it and then i wrote that song and it was just interesting to me because it's It's like when someone's pushing for you to like you and trying to like you and you're pushing them away for reasons, not because of how you feel, but because of what everybody else thinks.

55:44And if I had just not cared about that, then maybe it would have been different. But then had that not happened, I don't know if I had written the song. You're going to have the best song you ever wrote. How many other great songs do you have sitting? I'm not sure. there's a lot of things I can remember back in those days, just stuff I've written on the guitar. I can go through things and see songs that I've written over the years that I don't necessarily love. But it feels like a lot of the things that I wrote that were heartfelt from the guitar, I don't necessarily think they're necessarily commercial songs, but they're songs that I love.

56:20Yeah, you did that record Playlist maybe 15 or so years ago. It was sort of more just you and an acoustic in a way. It was covering some of the songs. Some of the things that inspired me. But doing a record like that with originals would be... Yeah, maybe. Would be cool. Capture a moment. Right. Throughout it all, there were songs that I would write and these feelings that I would have as a kid. And that's what the whole idea of Waterfall came from, doing things like that. We're going to pause for a quick break and then come back with the rest of my conversation with Babyface. I firmly believe when it comes to the holidays, you fall into one of two camps.

57:03Someone who loves holiday music, or someone who won't admit they love holiday music. There's something about a voice you love singing that familiar opening phrase, maybe it's Donny Hathaway, maybe it's Mariah Carey, that just flips a switch, and you're instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring. For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel brulee topping. It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form.

57:35And that's really what this season's about. Little moments of pairing, little moments of connection. Sharing a song, sharing a story, sharing a caramel brulee latte. Because this season and every season, together, is the best place to be. Come together over your holiday favorites at Starbucks. You want your master's degree, you know you can earn it. But life gets busy. The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected. American Public University was built for all of it. With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life.

58:10Start your master's journey today at apu.apus.edu. You want it? Come get it at APU. If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. That's why LinkedIn Jobs is stepping things up with their new AI assistant so you can feel confident you're finding top talent that you can't find anywhere else. The best part is those great candidates are already on LinkedIn. In fact, employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. That's a big deal when every hire counts.

58:44Hiring doesn't have to be complicated. With LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant, you can skip the confusing steps in recruiting jargon. It filters through applicants based on criteria you've set for your role and surfaces only the best matches so you're not stuck sorting through a mountain of resumes. When you have a business to run, you don't have hours to spend on hiring and you don't want to just wait around hoping the right person stumbles upon your job. That's why LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant suggests 25 great fit candidates daily so you can invite them to apply and keep things moving. Hire right the first time.

59:17Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash broken, then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash broken to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. We're back with the rest of my interview with Babyface. You didn't mention her name, but the girl that you wrote Sweet November for, do you ever know what happened to her? Did you ever figure that out? Yeah, she lives in Indianapolis. And did I ever follow up and ask about what happened? I did. She said she had just met someone else and felt really bad about how it ended.

59:56I don't really care. I even met with Rhonda Newboat. I met with her from the whole sixth grade thing. That's a whole long story. And I actually talked to her as well because I wanted to see. I was so interested to find out if my memory was the same. Yeah. It did. Did things happen the way that I thought they happened? Did they kind of remember it the same? It was pretty close. Pretty close. It was pretty, it was pretty, pretty on it, which was mind blowing to me that I, you know, that I really remembered it kind of the right way. Yeah. So. Wow. Seems like you carry things, you know, like with you.

1:00:35And my memory of those days stayed with me because there was something very powerful about when you're young and when you're in love and how powerful that is and that feeling you want to die. That's like when I wrote Breathe Again, I was writing from that perspective of thinking, if you leave me, I'll never breathe again. And that kind of desperate thing that kids feel. Because it's the first time and it's like everything is amplified by a million. And I used to love to go to that space sometimes. If I'm writing a love song, a heartfelt love song, then it's great to go to that space as a reference for those feelings.

1:01:24So you can conjure up that same... So as I carry these stories, I carry those feelings too. Amazing. and able to call on those in that way. Maybe we should listen to just a bit of breathing. I love hearing your songs. If you're cool with it. If I never feel you in my arms again If I never feel your tender kiss again If I never hear I love you now and then That song was, when I was writing it, I did the music first. And I was writing in Lococo, and I was actually writing it for another artist. Writing for an artist named MacArthur, who was Melvin Gentry, who was part of Midnight Star. And initially I was coming up with a track for his album.

1:02:14And then, as I did that, and those chords came to me, and those lyrics came to my hands, I said, oh no, this is not for him. this is a Tony song you know and then all of a sudden it just you know like flushed in the whole idea of it and and I was able to go back to that that little kid you know that was like destroyed in eighth grade and and thinking of those words and that's that's how you know you go to those moments and that's how you can revisit those feelings again and again. Yeah. It doesn't always have to be what's going on in your life now. It can be about either watching someone or going back to his actual feeling that you may have had at some point.

1:03:02Yeah, wow. Can you tell me about your relationship with Daryl Simmons? It seemed like a strong partnership you guys had, man. Yeah, Daryl's a great guy. Daryl, I knew him since I was in, I think, ninth grade. He used to come over to my house. He was friends with my brother when I was in eighth grade and he used to come over. And his memory of me was that he had heard that I had a microphone. And they had a band, and I think I had a microphone. And my brother Michael played guitar as well. And so they started this band. And I was still playing guitar a little bit. But the electric guitar I had, I shared it with my brother Michael.

1:03:43And Michael would take the guitar and leave it at rehearsal all the time. It's the wrongest shit in the world. but it was when I first kind of met Daryl where he was like wanting me to be in the band but my brother Michael he voted against it because he just didn't want me in it so it was a little bit later where we met me and my other friend Emmanuel Officer where we had just became this little singing thing called The Elements and we had this group called The Elements which all of it's a long story but basically Daryl joined that group and we became friends. And I was always a writer and Daryl sometimes would be around.

1:04:23He helped me write. And then sometimes, it wasn't that he would help me write. It's just that his being there made all of a sudden I would think of something. Sometimes you have a person that doesn't always write the songs, but them just being there, all of a sudden you think of something that you wouldn't have thought of. It's just their energy that kind of helps in songwriting. I think it was a communication thing that's just like the way you guys communicated. Yeah, it's just, one kind of thing is you just might think of a word that you might be joking around and then all of a sudden the word hits you.

1:04:54They help kind of help you get your creative juices going. It's not always particularly always just songwriting itself. Sometimes it's just that vibe. Yeah. And you know, we've been friends ever since. I have a few friends, a couple of friends for sure that I've known since I was a kid. And that's rare to have. Yeah. To be friends with people for that long. Well, especially when you're inhabiting the world that you're in and must be really grounding and great. It's a blessing in that way. And not everybody is in it. It's just having somebody from Indianapolis that kind of knew you when you were growing up and seeing you change, seeing you go through the changes in your life and who you've become and who you were at the time.

1:05:40Do you still write with them ever? We don't write that much together, but we talk all the time. tough yeah well like when was the last time you guys got together and i think i mean there was part of the the love marriage divorce uh man and tender uh return of the tender lover he did some writing with me there okay the last 10 years or so yeah it's i think when you're a writer that's writing today and you're constantly writing with younger writers the writing kind of changes and so you lean towards other people in terms of like when you because it because they're they're speaking differently. Speaking differently.

1:06:13And if you're not doing it on a continuous basis, what you have to offer isn't quite the same. Yeah, yeah. I do want to ask, all the great singers you work with, you wrote a song that Aretha did, Willing to Forgive. Yeah. That was a hit for her. What was working with Aretha like? That was surreal to actually go in with Aretha Franklin. And she was so nice to me. She wasn't always nice to everybody, so that's why I felt privileged. she was such a pro. She, like, you get, you maybe get one, you maybe get three runs down, maybe. But she'll come and say, I'm going to do it once or I'm going to do it twice and that's it, you know.

1:06:55And, uh... Could you kind of direct her beforehand and say, hey, you know... Every now and then she might let you, but for the most part, she just kind of like, she'd do her homework and then she'd go. I mean, she would have been with me and we were able to do some things. But I think probably my fondest experience with Aretha was doing Hurts Like Hell for XL. The way she's, that was a one time through. That was a one time? Yeah. Wow. And it was just unbelievable. And I think my best work with her. And I ended up doing kind of a greatest hits records with her with, we were doing covers and stuff but to be honest her voice wasn't quite the same anymore it was like you could hear what she could what she was trying to do yeah but it wasn't quite the same anymore but so having her have done that with hurts like hell she loved the song and she and she's singing like she loved it her voice was still her voice at that point and hearing it in like a just a in a studio space Yeah, it was just like here.

1:08:06She just came in and she said, let's go, let's do it. And it was done. Unbelievable. Can you tell me about the story of making End of the Road? So End of the Road was written for Boomerang. Went to see the movie before all the music was there. And there was one particular scene that I thought would have worked great. And we got the word that Boyz II Man might do the song. so I definitely was writing the song in a very old Philly kind of way so that whole sound of Philadelphia because that's where they were from so definitely writing kind of like that so as I started putting it together I had a little house in Atlanta that I would go to write up my songs for this project in general.

1:09:03And so I got it pretty far. I was pretty excited about it. I read most of the words and stuff. And then I called Daryl over to see, asked, do I really got one? And Daryl was like, this is one. And so I demoed it. And he helped me finish it up. And initially, I thought the song was so strong, I almost considered trying to keep it for myself. But I wasn't going to be an artist on this Boomerang thing. But hindsight, there's no question it was supposed to be Boyz II Men when they started singing and it was automatic. So we just flew up there to Philadelphia. They were on tour and they came in at just one afternoon to sing it down.

1:09:47And that's how we started. Is it true that Wanya wasn't vocally in the best shape? Wanya was, they were on tour, so he was like a little bit of a cold and stuff like that. and they were all kind of a little because they were out there singing, but it was fine, you know, obviously. Yeah. It was new for all of us because, like, we hadn't worked with a group like that before, and so coming up with these parts, they were great because they could help come up with parts on top of it, and a lot of the notes were already there, you know, because I had done the harmonies and stuff, and then we built on top of it and created on the spot.

1:10:26Yeah. and it felt like it just felt like it was a natural thing yeah you know and it's ultimately that road over into you know I'll make love to you yeah incredible man sitting up in my room that's such a different groove from from so many songs from that era even yeah it was sitting up in my room was once again going back to funky situation you know me trying to figure out how to do funk you know way years later just trying to give something that was supposed to be just one particular scene. I think the music that was there in the scene at first was Aaliyah, Back and Forth. I needed to have something that just kind of grooved a little bit.

1:11:14That was what I came up with. I knew it was going to be for Brandy, so I was trying to imagine how she would sing it. Then when she came and sang it, I was blown away how how good she is. That's such a cool vocal, man. She's just so good. She's, Brandy is so good. I think I can put Brandy up in the top 10 of like singers in terms of studio singers. There aren't very many that can, that are as good as she is. Wow. There just aren't. Even at that young age. Even at that young age. There just aren't very many. She's like, she's a beast. Who else would you put on that list? I mean, some people you put on the list based off because their vocals are just crazy.

1:11:58I mean, obviously Whitney, you know, because it's Whitney Houston. What I'm talking about is not just great voice, but also somebody just knows how to really just kill it every time. It just sounds almost perfect every time. I don't know that I can, Brandy's just one of those people. I think I was impressed by, you know, I was very impressed by Money Long. And when she's singing, SZA. SZA, yeah. Ridiculous. So there are people that, you know, that just have it. I mean, the list could probably, I could probably go down the list and give more. But I would always just say that in terms of somebody I always feel that is underrated would be Brandy.

1:12:44Yeah. Was there anyone you wanted to work with that you just missed? You mentioned Aliyah. Shade. Shade. I've always wanted to work with her. Isn't she making music right now? Yeah, I know, but that doesn't mean anything. Because she's got so much pain in her voice that I would love to work with that. That's the one that sticks, always. Got it. I just want to play one more cut. This was from the Preacher's Wife soundtrack, My Heart Is Calling. This was Whitney. If I desire you Well it ain't because I'm trying to But every day with you Well I swear it brings me closer to my only reservation Is you my sweet temptation baby It's incredible man I'd do it better than David What would you do different?

1:13:32The groove wasn't The groove was good but It wasn't like Whitney was all the way out of the pocket with it as I wanted her to be. And I would have made the chorus stronger. Okay. Yeah. Was it tough working with Whitney? Like, was it similar to Rita where you would only get a couple takes? No, Whitney, she'd work. Yeah. Our problem would be we'd be sitting around joking and laughing and stuff all the time. Oh, okay, we should work. And then we'd finally get it done. But a lot of times we'd just be always laughing about stuff. One of the great joys of my life is that we got three Michael albums with Quincy.

1:14:11And then, but one of my, I wish we could have got like a full Whitney baby face record, you know? Yeah, I think there would have been a shot that she, you know, had she lived longer. We were certainly in talks and doing work together again. You guys were talking again. Clive had called me and said, you know, she's ready. I think she's about ready to do this. And then she, you know, she was, she was right on the road of turning everything around and getting it back. When was that Clive call in comparison to? Maybe a month before. Were you starting to collect songs already in your head? Not yet.

1:14:49I was waiting to see if it was true. We didn't see whether her voice was back there. Because I wanted to do it with her when her voice was in shape. Yeah. And I wanted it, you know, because I loved working with Wendy. Was there ever a chance to do more work in the 90s, like beyond the soundtrack? because it was a big gap it was like 1990, 1998 and there's like a big yeah I think we were just I think she was just on a different page and I was on a different page at that point yeah man the way she interprets she was so many with me on the greatest question man well thank you so much well thank you appreciate you doing this yeah yeah this was great thanks again to Babyface for talking through his career and playing for us you can hear a playlist of all of our favorite Babyface songs, along with others he's written and produced at brokenrecordpodcast.com.

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