BABYFACE: RETURN OF THE TENDER LOVER BET SPECIAL TO AIR TONIGHT, DEC. 3rd, IN ADVANCE OF DEC. 4 RELEASE OF NEW ALBUM, RETURN OF THE TENDER LOVER, ON DEF JAM RECORDINGS
Babyface “Return Of The Tender Lover” BET Special (Dec. 3, 2015 – New York, NY) Today, Def Jam Recordings announces the Babyface: Return Of The Tender Lover Special set to air tonight, December 3rd at 10:30 EST p.m. (9:30Central), immediately following BET’s re-broadcast of last Sunday night’s 2015 Soul Train Music Awards, where 11-time Grammy Award®-winning, multi-platinum icon Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds performed and received the prestigious Soul Train Legend Award.
The Return of the Tender Lover special on BET/Centric sets the stage for tomorrow’s (December 4th) arrival of the brand new album from Babyface, RETURN OF THE TENDER LOVER on Def Jam Recordings. Just shipped to radio is the album’s new single, “Exceptional,” which impacts on Dec. 7th. High profile television appearances and performances continue for Babyface next week on ABC’s The View (December 8th), Good Morning America (December 9th), and Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, also on Dec. 9th.Babyface will be the featured guest on Steve Harvey’s nationally syndicated radio show on December 7th and will also guest on Tom Joyner’s show on December 10th. Babyface is touring through the end of December in the U.S. with more dates to be announced for 2016 in support of his new album.
Babyface: Return Of The Tender Lover said BET, “[will] capture all of Babyface’s cool moments during a rehearsal of five songs from the musician’s upcoming RETURN OF THE TENDER LOVER album … Loaded with footage from the making of the album’s first single We’ve Got Love and a peek inside his home with interviews with Babyface and L.A. Reid, and rare performance footage of El DeBarge.”
Babyface stole the show at Sunday night’s Soul Train Music Awards spectacular. After receiving the Legend Award, he was joined by a number of artists for collabs on songs he’d written/produced, including Tevin Campbell, Brandy, Fantasia, Bobby Brown, and Boyz II Men.
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 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 the Broadway musical After Midnight as “Special Guest Star” vocalists, for a limited engagement run. After Midnightreintroduced 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.
