BABYFACE DEBUTS NEW SINGLE, “WE’VE GOT LOVE”. The legacy of 11-time Grammy Award®-winning multi-platinum icon Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds continues with the release of “We’ve Got Love,” the first single from his forthcoming Def Jam Recordings album RETURN OF THE TENDER LOVER.
“We’ve Got Love,” the album’s first single, transcends romantic love to bring a global message of love and connectedness that we all have in our hearts. The song has already won strong reactions from radio programmers, and made its debut on this morning on Steve Harvey’s nationally syndicated radio show. Fans can listen to the track now on VEVO: http://vevo.ly/MBmTE9
The track will be available August 14th for streaming and download. Babyface is currently touring through October in the U.S. and South Africa and will continue to tour in support of the upcoming new album. “I have been blessed to experience a lot of love in my life,” commented Babyface. “It is the greatest gift in life and I feel blessed to share that universal message through my music.”
RETURN OF THE TENDER LOVER is the 10th studio album by the poignant tunesmith, prolific hit maker/producer, superstar recording artist, and revolutionary label owner Babyface. The album is filled with eight beautiful new original tracks of unapologetic R&B, intended to bring feel-good grooves back to music. Babyface plays on every track on the album including, although not limited to, his amazing and widely-praised guitar work.
RETURN OF THE TENDER LOVER’s title commemorates and pays homage to Babyface’s breakthrough album of 1989, the RIAA triple-platinum Tender Lover. His second studio LP, it spun off a quartet of career-defining solo R&B/pop crossover hits, “It’s No Crime” (#1), “Tender Love” (#1), “Whip Appeal” (#2), and “My Kinda Girl” (#3).
Babyface reigns as one the most prolific and successful producers and songwriters in pop music history. A sample of the artists he has produced and written (or co-written) hits for would include Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Eric Clapton, Colbie Caillat, Jennifer Hudson, Michael Jackson, Toni Braxton, and Aretha Franklin.
Earlier this year, Babyface shared the Best R&B Album Grammy Award® with multi-platinum 7-time Grammy Award®-winner Toni Braxton for Love, Marriage & Divorce, released February 2014 on Def Jam Recordings. The album took off behind “Hurt You,” the Urban AC #1 duet hit co-written by Toni Braxton & Babyface (with Daryl Simmons and Antonio Dixon), and produced by Babyface, who handled all guitar, drums, and keyboard programming on the track. “Hurt You” hit Top 40 pop and R&B, and rose to #1 on the Adult R&B Songs chart, where it spent more than six months.
Love, Marriage & Divorce was Babyface’s first new studio album in nearly seven years, since Playlist (September 2007), which hit Top 10 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart on the strength of his Top 10 AC version of James Taylor’s “Fire & Rain.”
Babyface made his Broadway musical debut in a leading role in 2014, when he and Toni Braxton joined the cast of After Midnight as “Special Guest Star” vocalists, for a limited engagement run. After Midnight reintroduced the Cotton Club’s exciting tradition of welcoming contemporary artists in limited engagements throughout the musical’s 272-performance run at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.
Edmonds is the recipient of numerous awards, including Soul Train Music Awards, BMI Awards, NAACP Image Awards, and American Music Awards. He received the third BET Walk of Fame Award (following previous honorees Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston), and was named BET’s Entertainer Of The Year at the First Annual BET Awards Ceremony. His charitable work has garnered him the Essence Award For Excellence, The City of Hope Award, and Variety magazine’s “Top of the Town” Honoree Award. He was the National Spokesman for Boarder Babies, and personally helped raise more than $500,000 for a transitional home, The Little Blue House, in Washington, D.C. He has also personally donated over $100,000 to the VH-1 Save the Music program, and contributes to a host of worthwhile organizations, including the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).
In 2008, Edmonds and longtime partner Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid combined their musical prowess and charitable efforts to co-write and co-produce “Just Stand Up” with heavyweights Beyoncé, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Leona Lewis, Ciara, Carrie Underwood, Sheryl Crow, and Miley Cyrus, to name a few. The song served as the backbone of a multi-purpose breast cancer awareness special. Edmonds and Reid were subsequently honored by the Noble Awards for their contribution to Stand Up To Cancer.
Among other expressions of Kenny’s generosity are his charitable performances at several fund-raising events for FasterCures, the center for accelerating medical solutions of the non-profit Milken Institute. During an extended 2012 performance at FasterCures’ Celebration of Science at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., he not only enthralled the audience with his songs, but also moved them by recounting the health challenges of his parents including the lung cancer that took the life of his father, a decorated soldier who succumbed when Kenny was in the eighth grade.
Website: www.Babyfacemusic.com
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/Babyface
Twitter: Twitter.com/KennyEdmonds
