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“I Kept Hearing
Your Name”:
Babyface Ray
Meets Babyface
Besides a shared moniker based on their youthful looks, Detroit rapper Babyface Ray and chart-topping R&B singer-songwriter-producer Babyface don’t have much in common. The former is a newly minted star, whose preternatural cool comes across in languid flows on songs like “6 Mile Show” and “Nice Guy,” while the latter is one of the architects of the last 40 years of soul music. Ray has ascended to become one of the faces (no pun intended) of a booming Detroit rap scene filled with idiosyncratic characters, side-splitting wordplay, and scores of colorful local lingo. When a regional hip-hop culture has a mainstream moment, only a handful of its artists end up becoming true pillars. Ray is humble and soft-spoken, but he may have the best shot of anyone in his city to do just that. A few weeks before releasing his second album of 2022, Mob, out tomorrow, Babyface Ray connected with Babyface to talk about longevity, the elusiveness of an “I made it” moment, and the closest he’s ever come to writing a love song.—GRANT RINDNER
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BABYFACE: Where you at?
BABYFACE RAY: I just got to San Francisco right now. I was in L.A.
BABYFACE: Okay, cool. I’m in the Dominican Republic right now.
RAY: What you got going out there?
BABYFACE: I just came down here for a few days off. Excuse the terrible band behind me, outside music. I pulled you up on Spotify and have been listening to all your stuff. I really like it, man. I like your smoothness. It’s just got a vibe to it.
RAY: I appreciate that a lot. You’re a legend, so just hearing that, it’s great.
BABYFACE: I kept hearing your name. Everybody kept confusing me with Babyface Ray and so I’m called a rapper these days. I was just kind of wondering, how did you grow up in Detroit? Was music always a part of [your life] or was it something that you just went to?
RAY: I’d been attached to music since I was a kid. My dad had a sick music collection, where he played like, all the classic good music coming up. We had a stereo system in my house. I remember growing up as a kid, he used to play that every day. And in middle school, I started to try to be a rapper. And it just went from there.
BABYFACE: When I was growing up in music, it was really all about having music on the radio. It wasn’t really so much about trying to make it. I’m trying to figure out, was it different in your life? Was it like a way out?
RAY: No. It wasn’t a way out because at first, when you’re doing it, you’re just doing it. You just think you doing something. I didn’t think we was gonna get to this moment in life. I had both my parents in the house so I wasn’t struggling. I had a pretty good childhood. I just started doing music and it eventually worked out.
BABYFACE: So how realistic are the stories that you tell and things that you rap about?
RAY: Oh, they’re super realistic. The life that I preach about through my music, no, I didn’t have to go down that road. But I was intrigued, kinda, by the streets and the stuff that was going on, so I ran towards them instead of doing the right thing. And what I speak about is just what happened.
BABYFACE: Were there guys in your neighborhood that were putting tracks together? Did you mess around with doing the music itself or did you just do the rapping?
RAY: I started out doing it by myself and then the guys from the neighborhood, which was Peezy, he’s from Detroit, he does music as well. He came up to me. The older [guys], they kind of grabbed me up when I was younger and then we got involved with each other. It’s a couple of cats that are doing very well. Icewear Vezzo, M Dot [Taylor], he’s a musician from Detroit. We all came up together and collaborated. Before I was Babyface Ray, we was a collaborative group called Team Eastside Detroit, which had some kind of traction going.
BABYFACE: So everybody’s still in Detroit? Or did everybody move out to different places?
RAY: Everybody’s still in Detroit.
BABYFACE: That don’t usually happen. Same house, same neighborhood?
RAY: Me and Icewear Vezzo are literally from the same neighborhood. Peezy was like, right up the street. And then the rest of the guys I did music with were spotted around the east side of Detroit and we came together.
BABYFACE: What do you feel like you want out of all this? How far do you want to go?
RAY: I’ve been doing it for so long, and nothing was ever happening. I’ve been given an opportunity to do big things. Now, I’m just reaching for everything that’s allowed me to get and being the best me.
BABYFACE: I’ve been doing this for a long time, and things didn’t really start hitting for me ‘til I was about 35. Now [I’m] going on 64, so that’s a lot of years. But, you know, it takes that kind of time. And you gotta keep that effort in, keep believing that you’re giving something to somebody enjoying it. I can see why you should keep on pushing and not giving up. Because you do have this thing about you, your voice, it’s got a chill vibe. And I ain’t just bullshytting. So, I’m glad we could talk. With everything that just happened [Takeoff, of Migos, was killed in Houston a day earlier], what do you think is happening with hip-hop culture right now?
RAY: We’re in different times right now, you know what I’m saying? Due to social media platforms, and people feeling a lot of pride, everybody wants to beat it. It’s hard. It’s rough in some places. The hip-hop industry is a reflection of the rough stuff that’s going on. Sometimes, we speak about stuff we shouldn’t be talking about, but it’s realistic for us. You know what I’m saying?
BABYFACE: I guess, in reality, it goes on every day anyway. It’s just when somebody famous puts a light on it. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen [otherwise]. In other words, it doesn’t make sense not to talk about it, because it’s real either way. It’s just a hurtful time right now. I’m sorry, I’m at a loss now.
RAY: I feel, in the music industry before, we didn’t really expect to know artists so well, you know what I’m saying? We just enjoyed these artists for music and music only. Now we’ve got these social media platforms, where you can get into these people’s lives, and they want to push the artists to see, “Are you what you talking about?”
BABYFACE: With that in mind, how open are you in terms of social media, with your life and everything?
RAY: Now that I’m in this position, I post what needs to be posted. I do what I need to do, because I don’t want to jeopardize the opportunity. It’s not about me. It’s about my kids, my mother, my father, my siblings. I’m in a position to change a lot around me. So I do what’s necessary. I try not to draw outside the lines. I’m handling business, man. I don’t really care about none of the other stuff y’all got going on.
BABYFACE: I hear you. What does that feel like when you hit the stage? What Michael Jackson used to say to me was how much he loves music and that was the reason why he did it, because he had such a love for music. He’d asked me that kind of question and I didn’t always know how to respond, because I don’t think I loved it as much as he did. Where does your love for music come from? You said your dad used to listen to records. I also heard that your dad was a pastor. Did part of the influence come from being in church?
RAY: Before I was even doing music, music was able to change my emotions. Like, if I listen to a song it’ll put me in this mode, or if I listen to a song it’ll put me in this mode. Like, I can have a bad day and listen to the right song and I’ll feel better. People who know me know I’m pretty private, shy. But when I’m on stage doing my music, that’s my time for me to let it pour out.[/QUOTE]