After his wildly successful #Verzuz battle with Teddy Riley, Babyface said he wants to get back on Instagram Live one more time.
In an interview with the hosts of The View, the Grammy winner said for Mother's Day he plans to play his widely adored Waiting To Exhale soundtrack on Instagram Live and take fans through the album with stories and tales from its creation.
“There were so many people on the Instagram Live who wanted to hear music from Waiting to Exhale so I thought this would be great, Mother’s Day, to play the Waiting to Exhale album, tell stories, tell how it all happened and talk about the artists. Because that was half the fun of it all in doing the Instagram Live was being able to tell stories. People were so interested in that. So I thought it would be fun to do as well,” Babyface told Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar.
More than 4 million people tuned in to watch Babyface and Riley trade hits on April 20, crashing Instagram at one point. The battle was initially postponed after technical difficulties but was well worth the wait.
Babyface explained that he was wary of participating in the #Verzuz event but was egged on by L.A. Reid and Diddy. While he had little interest in the battle aspect of the session, he went on to tell The View hosts that he really enjoyed telling fans stories about how his greatest hits were put together and what it took to create his timeless catalog.
Babyface told poignant and hilarious stories about Michael Jackson, Halle Berry and other celebrities before playing some of his most notable hits.
His participation proved to be pretty lucrative, too. Billboard reported that Nielsen Music/MRC Data showed all 49 tracks played during the session collectively registered 3 million on-demand audio streams in the U.S. on April 21.
The Babyface-produced hit “Can We Talk” by Tevin Campbell was particularly successful, bringing in 232,000 streams just one day after the Instagram Live battle, according to Billboard.
Dozens of other Babyface hits like, “Soon As I Get Home,” “Whip Appeal” and Campbell’s “I’m Ready” saw triple-digit streaming increases. Billboard also noted that Toni Braxton's “Love Shoulda Brought You Home,” saw a 493% increase in streams just one day after the Instagram Live.
During the interview, he also spoke about his recovery from COVID-19 and what he went through in the weeks following his positive diagnosis. On April 10, his 62nd birthday, he tweeted about his diagnosis.
Stay Home, Stay Safe pic.twitter.com/hF1MvtEuuB
— Babyface (@KennyEdmonds) April 10, 2020
"I feel so blessed to be able to celebrate another birthday. I tested positive for Covid19, as did my family. It's an incredibly scary thing to go through my friends. I'm happy to report we have now tested negative and are on our way back to full health," he tweeted at the time.
During his interview with Goldberg and Behar, he said he wasn't sure how he caught COVID-19 but said he had a scratchy throat after a performance in Las Vegas.
For six days, he had a fever as well as body aches, chills and night sweats. He spent more than two weeks quarantined at home with his wife who also reported having symptoms before they both got tested.
