The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Catch up with Babyface before Northeast Ohio gig
Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds enjoys having a lot of irons in the fire
For a guy known to the world as Babyface, Kenny Edmonds has a pretty impressive résumé of experience.
The Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, performer and producer has scored hits for himself (“It’s No Crime,” “Tender Love,” “Whip Appeal”) and others, helming 26 No. R&B hits for the likes of Whitney Houston, Boyz II Men, Usher, Janet Jackson, Beyonce, TLC, Toni Braxton, Bobby Brown, Eric Clapton ... suffice to say the list goes on, right up to Ariana Grande and a duet with Barbra Streisand on her 2014 album “Partners.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign he cowrote the Democratic National Convention theme song “Stronger Together,” and he followed that with an appearance on “Dancing With The Stars.”
And if you were paying attention, you heard Bruno Mars warmly salute Babyface as a forebear and mentor during his several acceptance speeches at this year’s Grammy Awards.
He’s done a lot, in other words, and the Indianapolis native acknowledges he occasionally loses track of it all.
“Yeah, you kinda find things every now and then,” Babyface, 58, says with a laugh by phone from Los Angeles. “I was at a concert the other day where I was performing and Dru Hill was onstage and I heard a couple songs that sounded familiar and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I wrote those...’ Or something will come on the radio and I’m like, ‘Damn, this sounds familiar,’ and then it come to me, ‘Oh yeah, I did that!’
“It’s just years of work. It starts to blur together a little bit, and then there’s the new work, which is what you’re really focused on.”
There’s plenty of that for Babyface, too. He’s “pretty close” to finishing his next album, a follow-up to 2015’s “Return Of The Tender Love.” “I’m trying to make good-feeling music again and not be afraid of who I am and who I’ve been,” he explains. “Fortunately Bruno (Mars) made it easy for us to be ourselves again, and then you have so many cool artists like Daniel Caesar and Khalid who are doing feel-good R&B that makes you not afraid to be R&B and just let the heart lead again.
“That’s the biggest takeaway that I take with music at this point. I think that’s a great thing.”
Babyface allows that he did, in fact, avoid taking that approach in recent years, staying mindful of trends that steered away from the sounds he trademarked during the late ‘80s and ‘90s.
“The reason why we leaned towards the ‘90s music was because it was about love.” — Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, musician
“There was a period there where it was hard to figure out how to be you and how to be relevant in music because there was only so many kinds of music that radio was looking for and was even willing to try,” he explains. “Now at this particular point, with streaming, it’s a wider range. The door’s open wider for you to be able to be you and be yourself.”
But, he’s quick to add, that doesn’t necessarily make it easier.
“You still have to be clever and it’s got to feel good and it’s got to touch people,” Babyface explains. “You can’t just make a record like an old record and go, ‘Oh, this fees like something before that worked’ and think it’s good enough,” Babyface explains. “You still have to be clever and it’s got to feel good and it’s got to touch people. It has to feel special.
“So that’s where the time is that I put in, ‘cause I’ll come up with a lot of things that feel good to me at the time, but then I come back the next day and say, ‘Nope, that’s not it’ and there’s been a long time of me doing that. It’s just how I work, but the results speak for themselves, hopefully.”
Babyface’s other major project now is working on BET’s new Bobby Brown biopic, based on the singer’s 2013 memoir, “Every Little Step.” Babyface is re-recording Brown’s hits with cast members, including star Woody McClain — who’s portraying Brown in the new film as he did in 2017’s “The New Edition Story” — while he and onetime “polite rival” Teddy Riley are collaborating on a new song for Brown himself to sing. “Bobby was just in the studio,” Babyface reports. “He’s working. His voice is in good shape. He’s getting in really good shape and he lost a lot of weight and he’s on a road to getting it good, getting it right again.”
Between his own music and reminding the world about Brown, Babyface hope he’ll continue to help turn the musical tide back to what he feels was a better place.
“The reason why we leaned towards the ‘90s music was because it was about love,” Babyface says. “Everybody was having fun, having a good time and loving each other. That’s what it was about. That feeling always wins when it’s needed — and it’s needed right now.”