Babyface To Host Mother’s Day Instagram Live Concert Featuring Entire ‘Waiting To Exhale’ Soundtrack
Babyface has a special treat for mothers this year. He recently appeared on an episode of The View and chatted about his experience with COVID-19, his highly-lauded Instagram Live “Verzuz” battle with Teddy Riley, and how he’s slated to perform an Instagram Live Mother’s Day concert that features the entire Waiting To Exhale soundtrack, that many fans requested during his battle with Riley.
The 11-time Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter said that he had returned from a trip to Las Vegas and he had a scratchy throat. Once his doctor examined him, he said it could be bacterial. Babyface said that he didn’t want to take any chances, so he self-quarantined immediately.
“I immediately went to my studio and just kind of shut the studio down and I hunkered down there just in case and by that night, suddenly the fever came, body aches, chills, night sweats. Everything hit me and the temperature was like 101 and above sometimes,” Babyface told The View.
“That lasted for about six days or so where it was just constant and at that point, [my wife] Nikki had not had any symptoms at all, and then, somewhere in between that time period, she ended up getting symptoms.”
NEW ORLEANS, LA – JULY 01: Singer Babyface performs on stage during the 2016 ESSENCE Festival presented by Coca Cola at the Louisiana Superdome on July 1, 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for 2016 Essence Festival)
During the interview, Babyface said that he initially wasn’t sure about doing the “Verzuz” battle with Riley. “First of all, battling with music is not necessarily my kind of thing to begin with,” he said.
The songwriter said that it took his longtime producing partner L.A. Reid and Diddy to convince him to do the battle for the culture.“Puffy got on the phone and Puffy said, you know in his words, I won’t say what those words, what he said was stop being shy and go for it,” Babyface said before laughing.
“And that was kind of the thing that pushed me. I thought I should do this because we all needed an escape and this was a good thing to do. It turned out to be an amazing thing to do. We had a lot of fun. Teddy’s an amazing producer and writer.”
Babyface also announced that he would be releasing new music soon, but first, he’ll be offering his fans a Mother’s Day concert via Instagram.
“There were so many people on Instagram Live that wanted to hear music from ‘Waiting to Exhale’ and so I thought this would be a great Mother’s Day to play the album and tell stories, tell how it all happened and talk about the artists and stuff,” Babyface said.
“That was half the fun of doing the Instagram Live and being able to tell stories.”
