Anita Baker has found herself in hot water again after she had another late start to one of her most recent stops on her The Songstress tour.
On Nov. 18 the “Giving You the Best That I Got” singer performed at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex in Greensboro, North Carolina, but not before making fans in attendance wait for it. In a TikTok video taken from the show, a fan said that Baker walked out on stage “almost 2 hours late” before performing her hits.
It was also said by the fan that the 65-year-old Grammy award winner allegedly spent a large amount of her time on stage arguing with the concert’s production team. In the video, Baker can be seen singing instructions to the tech crew, like “It’s coming from the aux,” and “Remove the aux.” She also called one of the workers out, saying, “You’re looking at me; you’re not doing anything.”
That wasn’t the only video taken from the event as another person showed the “Caught Up in the Rapture” singer doing a sound check and a production run-through in the middle of the show. Baker told the crowd, “I just need to take one more minute,” as she told the production team that a wedge was not on. She apologized to the audience and said that it would be OK while she instructed the crew that she needed an acoustic piano in a different location.
Is she not showing up to her sound checks?
— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) November 26, 2023
Ma’am what is going on? pic.twitter.com/7zPg7WV4ET
Later in the video, Baker asked for the crew to change her mic stand because it was “going to kill” her. The video cuts to later after one of the workers changed out the mic stand, but he didn’t bring it all the way to Baker. She then told the crew member, “Sweetheart, I’m over here.” She repeated it multiple times, but when the man didn’t return, one of her backup singers moved the stand closer to her. “Somebody check is gone,” Baker said.
Viewers called out the legendary singer for her late arrival and onstage antics. Baker’s critics said things like, “Artists should respect people’s time too. It’s ridiculous that they even do that and expect folks to be happy,” and “I’m supposed to see her next month, bout to request a refund right now! she can play in someone else’s face but it won’t be mine lol.”
One commenter said, “So it wasn’t Babyface, huh,” referring to Baker’s antics earlier in the year that led to singer and songwriter Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds being removed from the tour. During her May 10 stop in Newark, New Jersey, fans had a similar experience when their show was pushed back almost two hours due to technical difficulties.
Because of the time constraints, Babyface was asked not to perform to allow Baker to have more time onstage. This led to an online frenzy where many people called out Baker for antics, bringing up some of her past dealings with Luther Vandross and Maxwell, where she seemingly did the same thing.
Baker fought back, replying to multiple negative tweets about her. Over a month after the incident in Newark occurred, Baker removed Babyface from the tour, citing cyberbullying and threats of violence from Babyface’s fans.
