Babyface, Keyshia Cole, et Lucky Daye

Born the fifth of six children, Edmonds began his musical excursions playing in local R&B bands around Indianapolis. During a stint in Bootsy Collins’ backing band, the singer earned the nickname “Babyface” for his childlike looks, however left soon after in 1977 to join the funk band Manchild who went on to release three albums together.

Around this time Edmonds met Antonio “L.A.” Reid and formed the urban funk outfit the Deele. The pair charted with a number of singles, however made more of a mark for their writing and producing for other artists with their label LaFace. The Deele split up in 1988 following the released of their third album, although continued to earn success with a string of hits with other artists including Bobby Brown’s “Every Little Step”, Sheena Easton’s “The Lover in Me” and Karyn White’s “The Way You Love Me”.

In an under-the-radar release, Edmonds issued his debut album “Lovers” in 1986, however it was his sophomore album “Tender Lover” where the singer’s solo success came to the fore. The album went double platinum and spawned the No. 1 single “It’s No Crime” and No. 2 single “Whip Appeal”. Edmonds subsequently worked and collaborated with some of the biggest artists around including Johnny Gill, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Aretha Franklin with his biggest chart success coming from Boyz II Men. Around this time Edmonds’ and Reid’s label LaFace had become synonymous with lucrative and up-and-coming artists such as OutKast, TLC and Usher.

With such esteem and critical acclaim Edmonds took a step back from his solo work in the early ‘90s, with his next album arriving in 1993 with the name “For the Cool in You” and proved an even bigger hit than “Tender Love”, going triple platinum and earning Babyface his first top-five pop hit with “When Can I see You Again” which also earned the singer his first performing Grammy for Best Male R&B vocal.

In the run-up to the new millennium Edmonds' success well and truly blossomed with his scoring and producing of the “Waiting to Exhale” soundtrack, his 1996 album “The Day”, and his production on Eric Clapton’s “Change the World”, which he won his third successive Grammy as Producer of the Year for.

With the success of “Waiting to Exhale” Edmond focussed his attention of films and created his own film production company with wife Tracey Edmonds, subsequently making their film production debut with “Soul Food” in 1997. Babyface’s next musical releases came in the form of the seasonal “Christmas with Babyface” and the compilation “A Collection of His Greatest Hits” – marking his move to Arista Records, where L.A. Reid was an executive.

Edmonds' subsequent releases and collaborations have included the albums “Face2Face” (2001) and “Grown & Sexy” (2005), as well as the soundtrack for the film “Josie & the Pussycats”, and work with the likes of Lil Wayne, Vanessa Willaims and Anthony Hamilton. All in all making Edmonds one of the most highly respected and flexible musicians and producers of the R&B genre.

It’s not normally a good idea to meet your idols, so goes the accepted wisdom. It’s doubly true if they happen to be musicians, since one builds up such a convincing portrait of them based on their music that’s probably still false. However, it seems Keyshia Cole had the experience that every musician dreams of having when they meet their idols. At the age of twelve, Cole and her brother Sean were trying to make it in the music world so they decided to go straight to the source for information. They called MC Hammer. Of course, Hammer was nothing if not a busy man in the early 90’s, so it took many, many calls and many terse conversations with his secretary but miraculously, they managed to get through to him, and the twelve year old Cole found herself recording with him soon afterwards.

What’s more, it would happen again, but this time in infinitely more tragic circumstances. After working with Hammer Cole became something of a name in the Hip-Hop scene and later struck up a friendship with Tupac Shakur. Again, it was almost too good to be true, as he promised to help her out with her singing career, giving her a leg up by letting her write and sing a hook on an upcoming track of his. However, that would all happen on the same night he was tragically murdered. However, Keyshia Cole turned out to be the kind of artist who wouldn’t need that kind of help, and true to form, her first major successes would come on her own terms.

At the age of 18 she moved to Los Angeles from Oakland, and by the time she was 21 she was introduced to Ron Fair, an A&R man from A&M Records. He heard a demo of “Love”, a song that would go on to be her first platinum single, and signed her almost immediately after. Her first singles may not have set the charts alight but they showed off some impressive collaborators, with hr debut single featuring Eve and her second single being produced by some no-hoper called Kanye West. Her first mixtape came out soon afterwards, which again saw some impressive team ups with Fat Joe and Ghostface Killah. However, her debut album was what made her a star.

It was an immediate top ten smash, selling nearly a hundred thousand copies in its first week. Everything that followed “The Way It Is” was a hit, third single “I Should Have Cheated” hitting number 30, and “Love” going straight in at number six. Cole had arrived. Since then she’s gone from strength to strength, with two other platinum albums following her debut and since 2006, she’s had a succesful side venture as a reality TV star, with a number of shows following her personal life to this very day. Clearly, Cole is an artist that every fan of Hip-Hop and R&B should feel pretty blessed to have going, and she’s not out of her prime yet. One to see as soon as possible.