Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds is offering a unique gift on Mother’s Day that he’ll give to everyone at once: He’ll play songs from the “Waiting to Exhale” soundtrack on IG Live.
Edmonds, who wrote and produced the album, had a major hit on his hands after it dropped in 1995.
People’s fondness of the soundtrack hasn’t seemed to dissipate over the years either, which was evident when a lot of folks asked to hear songs from the LP during Edmonds’ IG Live battle with Teddy Riley earlier this month.
Edmonds revealed the news about the Mother’s Day gift Tuesday during an interview with “The View.” He explained that part of his motivation to play the LP is getting the chance to tell background stories, something he did during his battle with Riley.
“There were so many people that were on the Instagram Live that wanted to hear, like, music from ‘Waiting to Exhale,’ and so I thought this would be great, Mother’s Day, to play the ‘Waiting to Exhale’ album, and tell stories, tell how it all happened and talk about the artists,” explained Edmonds at the 5:04 mark.
“Because that was half the fun of it all in doing the Instagram Live was being able to tell stories and tell things, people were so interested in that. So I thought it would be fun to do this as well,” he said.
The tracklist for the “Waiting to Exhale” album looks like a list of nominees for an R&B Hall of Fame induction ceremony, with some of the biggest names in the genre lending their voices.
Aretha Franklin took part and so did Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Mary J. Blige, Brandy and SWV, among others.
The album peaked at No.1 on Billboards’ Top 200, as well as its Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Edmonds was already a big star when he worked on the album, but he was still incredibly nervous about it.
Edmonds told Billboard in 2015 that he never took on a project of that magnitude and was aware of how high the expectations would be.
“I had a huge responsibility on my shoulders because ‘Waiting to Exhale,’ the book, was huge, and so the film was very important, and then, this was Whitney,” he explained. “I was taking it in, but I kind of wasn’t all the way there when it was happening.”
“I got a call from Forest Whitaker, who sat down with me and asked me what I thought about doing music,” Edmonds went on. “Not just writing music but scoring. That was new territory for me, so I was very nervous. But he said, ‘You can do it, I’ll help you get through it and we can make it happen.'”
Edmonds also told “The View” that he’s releasing new music soon, his other major announcement on the show.
Mother’s Day is on Sunday, May 10.
