Babyface talks producing Whitney Houston with Jalen Rose

nypost.com:

Babyface is a legend in the recording booth.As a producer and songwriter, he’s developed some of the world’s greatest musicians across genres, including the likes of Whitney Houston, Beyoncé and Usher, just to name a few.This week on “Renaissance Man,” Babyface – born Kenneth Brian Edmonds – took me down memory lane and dished on the moments when he realized that these young talents would become undisputed global sensations.Specifically, Babyface remembers developing his own “language” while recording with Houston, who, he said, was all business.“She didn’t necessarily like to spend a lot of time singing.

She liked to get in there and get it done,” Babyface told me. “If it was hard for her, if she wasn’t in voice one day, then she probably would just stop immediately and say, ‘We’ve just got to try this another day.’”Babyface respected the superstar’s process, as he too “hated” banging his head against a wall in the studio.“It was always great work with her.

And she was always a lot of fun … We kind of had our own language with each other, kind of knowing when to go and when to stop.”As it turns out, not surprisingly, Beyoncé took a similar approach during her own recording sessions, as she’s “always serious about her craft.”“She clearly came with that intention, no different than when Aretha Franklin would walk in the room,” he said. “She would come in and say, ‘Let’s do this.

I’m gonna sing it two times, that’s what you get.’”But everybody in the industry does things in their own style — and there’s no better example of that than my personal friend Usher Raymond.Babyface got to know the “Love in this Club” vocalist while he was just a teen.