Teddy Riley and Babyface’s IG Live battle finally went down — here’s what happened
And the winner is…
After having diehard R&B fans wait weeks for the showdown, Teddy Riley and Babyface’s IG Live battle finally went down on Monday (April 20) night. And unsurprisingly, it had Black Twitter talking from beginning to end.
As many of us already know, the IG Live had to be postponed twice before happening today. It was first scheduled for April 5, however, Face was recovering from Coronavirus at that time and had to put it off. Then, on Saturday (April 18), after a lot of technical difficulties on Riley’s side, the two ended their second try before confirming that a later date would be set in order for them to give the best show possible. So, this 4/20 was the highly anticipated day and hundreds of thousands — over 500,000 actually — of fans joined in the festivities.
Considering that both Riley and Babyface are music legends, we knew that the fight would be close and that they would each bring the heat. Face gave us all the feels when he played some of his many, many hits — which included songs that he wrote and produced for other artists — such as The Whispers’ “Rock Steady,” his own “Every Time I Close My Eyes,” Bobby Brown’s “Everybody Little Step,” Tevin Campbell’s “Can We Talk?,” “Two Occasions,” “Whip Appeal,” Johnny Gill’s “My, My, My,” Karyn White’s “Superwoman,” Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love To You” — the list goes on!
The legendary recording artist/songwriter/producer even shared that he wrote Campbell’s “I’m Ready” when he was just in high school. What a FLEX. Face also admitted that Madonna and Michael Jackson, who didn’t agree on a lot of stuff, both loved his “When Can I See You,” which the virtuoso played on his guitar for a bit.
Riley kept hitting back at each song with a vengeance, though. After all, the last IG Live attempt didn’t go so well for him and he became the butt of a lot of jokes. So, he came ready tonight to shut everybody down. The classic tracks that he bumped were Foxy Brown ft. Blackstreet’s “Gotta Get U Home,” Guy’s “A Piece Of My Heart,” Hi-Five’s “I Like The Way,” JAY-Z ft. Blackstreet’s “The City Is Mine,” Dave Hollister’s “Before I Let You Go,” Michael Jackson’s “Jam,” and much more.
Social media was living for the R&B classics battle and people weren’t shy about talking about it. It was a trending topic for hours!
Some of the many celebs who also watched the showdown on IG Live were Mariah Carey, Keyshia Cole, Jadakiss, Tamar Braxton, Toni Braxton, Snoop Dogg, Tyrese, Missy Elliott, Rashida Jones, Sevyn Streeter, Bryan-Michael Cox, Troy Ave, DJ Drama, Gabrielle Union, Pusha T, Michelle Obama, Fat Joe, Game, Raekwon, K Camp, Ludacris, Nelly and many more. Needless to say, they were loving every minute of it like we all were.
What a night! Tell us, who do you think won?