“The girls today have a much better sense of themselves,” he says.
“They’re not afraid to say, ‘Well, I’m not going to say that.’
Producers and the record company aren’t as scary anymore.
Babyface.P Music Group
[Back then] whoever the A&R person was, you had to listen.
You lost your independence.
That’s gone.”
Babyface’s solidarity with self-confident ladies has distinguished his career since the late 1980s, and it persists today.
He doesn’t compete so much as complement.
“It was a place to showcase these voices I love,” he says.
“I didn’t wanna step on them.
I didn’t want to age it.
I didn’t want to be the creepy old uncle.
I wanted to be in the room, give advice, and that’s it.”
To his credit, though, Babyface shows little patience for nostalgia.
He doesn’t bemoan the impact of streaming.
If anything, he thinks it has created more freedom and opportunity for young musicians.
“Now this genre’s breaking open.
You don’t see Kehlani at the top of the charts, but she doesn’t have to be.
Babyface recently caught up with EW to share the stories behind some of his favorite collaborations with women.
This was a song I was initially writing for [my label] LaFace [for another artist].
While writing it, I realized, ‘Uh-oh, this should be somewhere else.
It should be with Toni.'”
We wrote it together.
We each brought lyrics and melodies, singing them back and forth.
She also brought in the arranger for the strings, which sound amazing."
This was one of the last songs written forWaiting to Exhale.Whitney wasn’t necessarily going to sing.
She said, ‘I might do something, I might not.’
It wasn’t automatic.
But the film needed a theme.
They felt so good, and I said to myself, ‘Why would you change that?'"
Good thing I did it became Mary’s first top 5 pop hit."
“Liquor” Babyface feat.
Ari Lennox (2022)
“It came together when I asked Ari, ‘What’s up with you?
Are you in love?
Not in love?’
She said, ‘I’m not in love.’
She ain’t got no broken heart.
I asked her what kind of men she liked.
“Seamless” Babyface feat.
Then somewhere in the middle Kehlani said, ‘Nah, this is too boring.’
So we changed it up.”
