- Babyface and Reid founded LaFace Records in 1989.
- They later formed a production duo that scored hits for artists like Bobby Brown, Karyn White, and Johnny Gill.
- During the early ’80s, Babyface played keyboards in the group The Deele, which is how he met L.A.
- He got the nickname Babyface-a testament to his youthful appearance-from legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins.
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Babyface songs albums professional#
From an early age, he wrote songs to express his emotions and dreamed of a professional career in music. Babyface was raised in a family of six in Indianapolis, Indiana.He’s also crafted hits for everyone from Madonna and Boyz II Men to Eric Clapton and Fall Out Boy. “Dictionary might run outta words ‘fore I run outta bread.Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and producer Babyface ruled the charts in the ’90s with his smooth R&B sound. That chopped-up horn loop fits the Detroit style so well, and Peezy sounds so casual over it. As Babyface Ray expands - as Detroit rap itself expands - I hope that weirdness can remain intact. It’s what I want from a record like FACE - two weird sounds, sounding weird together. To me, that’s a whole lot more exciting than the serviceable, slightly altered Atlanta trap that makes up a good chunk of FACE. “Overtime” isn’t a masterpiece or anything, but it’s an intriguing new wrinkle, and it’s the kind of thing that can only happen when a regional rapper looks way outside his comfort zone. It’s an unlikely combination, and it works - partly because these two flavors make sense together and partly because it’s just something new. Ray starts rapping just as the beat kicks in, and everything snaps into focus when he arrives. Yung Lean croons an echo-damaged hook and sounds like he’s stuck deep in a Xan hole. The track feels like an ideal fusion of Yung Lean’s dark, gurgling melody and the ramshackle sonic grammar of Michigan rap. The tracks’ beat comes from Gud, a Swedish producer from Yung Lean’s Sad Boys crew, and from Detroit beatmaker Carlo Anthony. On “Overtime,” Ray teams up with Yung Lean, the depressive Swedish cult figure. Right now, though, my favorite song on the album is the weirdest one - the one where two very different strains of rap music combine into something new. The song also has Ray muttering that he still hasn’t met Drake.īabyface Ray’s songs have a tendency to sneak up on you, and FACE feels like a grower. That’s a clear visual metaphor for selling insular street-music to people like me - interested parties who don’t have any experience with the situations that Babyface Ray describes. In the clip, hoity-toity white people file through an art museum with guns mounted on walls instead of paintings. But the video for “Gallery Dept,” a strong collaboration with fellow Detroit rapper Veeze, shows how uncomfortable that might be.
Last year, Ray released his Unfuckwithable EP, a clear attempt to find a bigger audience. He’s been doing his best to make that work, but he seems to know that it won’t necessarily be a smooth transition. There’s something calming about the combination of Ray’s delivery and the chaotic beats of Detroit.įor a couple of years, Ray has been talking about how he’s trying to take Detroit rap to another level. Ray tends to sound effortless, finding the pocket of a beat and using it to speak softly. It implies menace, but it never screams it. He’s not a flashy rapper, but he does effective work as a sort of self-assured sleepy-eyed street-rap everyman. Babyface Ray has been a key figure in the Michigan rap underground since the current version of that underground started to take shape.