Hit-Maker Babyface Keeps Others in the Spotlight

People move to Los Angeles every day to seek stardom.

Kenneth (Babyface) Edmonds may be the first one to move here to avoid it.

That is why the R & B producer-songwriter-performer pulled up stakes in Atlanta three years ago and bought a house in Beverly Hills.

“People aren’t as used to seeing celebrities there,” Edmonds, 37, says of Atlanta, where the LaFace record label he co-owns with former writing and production partner Antonio (L.A.) Reid is headquartered.

“I don’t like going places and everyone saying, ‘Hey Babyface!’ It’s not that I mind doing autographs or anything, it’s just the attention. Going to McDonald’s and it becoming an event each time you go out. It’s like, no fun.

“But here in L.A., who cares? I mean, why are you gonna look at me when Arnold Schwarzenegger just walked by?”

No wonder Edmonds is so enthusiastic about his latest project, the soundtrack to the movie “Waiting to Exhale.” It’s the perfect place for him to be lost among the stars.

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While he produced the album, wrote 15 of its 16 songs and played much of the music himself, the singers are R & B’s top divas, including Whitney Houston (who also stars in the film), Toni Braxton, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige and TLC.

There isn’t even a photo of Edmonds in the CD booklet.

But the plan might have backfired. Pop pundits are predicting that the album--which entered the national sales chart at No. 3 this week--will be the biggest hit of the Christmas season. Sales should get another boost after the film opens on Dec. 22. It could even approach the level of the last Houston-driven soundtrack, “The Bodyguard”--the best-selling film collection ever.

It’s the kind of success that could blow Babyface’s cover. You get the feeling, though, that he’d rather not think about it.

“The coolest thing about the record is not so much the way people say how successful it could be,” he says in his usual soft-spoken manner. “The coolest thing was actually working on it. . . . If it didn’t sell at all it still would be the one record when I look back on my career that I’ll be most proud of. I worked hard on it, but also enjoyed working with every one of those artists. To be a part of that project, that’s enough for me.”

That’s not enough for everyone. There are lots of people who believe that not only could he be a big star on his own, but that he should be.

“I always have managers and people coming up to me and saying, ‘All the things you’ve written for other people, if you put a quarter of that energy into your own career you would be the biggest star,’ ” he says, sitting amid washes of brown and beige in the elegant living room of his house. “I don’t think that’s my particular calling. It’s not worth doing things for your own vanity.”

That’s been his philosophy since his childhood in Indianapolis. The fifth of six brothers whose father died when Babyface was 13, he learned self-sufficiency early.

“We weren’t very close,” he says of his siblings (two of whom are now in the group After 7). “Everybody had their own life and own friends and didn’t really intermingle that much.”

As he journeyed through a series of junior high and high school bands, he always remained largely in the background, playing guitar and studying pop craft.

By the time he had his first record deal, in 1978 with a band called Manchild, he was an accomplished writer. By 1982 he had accumulated enough skills that he was asked to contribute a song to, and later join, a new band called the Deele, which also included Reid. The two developed a style that combined classic R & B elements with Earth, Wind & Fire-influenced funk and an emerging hip-hop edge.

By the mid-’80s, they were one of the hottest pop production teams, shaping trend-setting hits for Bobby Brown and Johnny Gill and eventually earning a label deal from Arista chairman Clive Davis. Now LaFace is among the most successful record ventures of the ‘90s, with Braxton and TLC among its artists.

Edmonds’ commercial touch has never been more evident than in his work with Boyz II Men. He wrote and produced the group’s “End of the Road,” which was No. 1 for 13 weeks, and wrote “I’ll Make Love to You,” which was No. 1 for 14 weeks.

“He’s definitely responsible for taking Boyz II Men to another level, musically, visually--everything,” Boyz member Shawn Stockman says. “And being an aspiring producer and songwriter myself, he’s definitely an inspiration. . . . It’s a given that every Boyz II Men album we create will have a Babyface song on it.”

Even Ron Sweeney, the executive vice president of black music for Epic Records--the label Edmonds records for when he does his own work--can only admire his efforts on behalf of other artists, though they come at the expense of his own recording career.

“When the history books are written, you will find that Babyface is the Holland-Dozier-Holland of the ‘90s,” Sweeney says, referring to the songwriting team that created many of Motown’s greatest hits in the ‘60s. “I’m happy to have him on the label whether we get an album every year or every five years.”

He might get one next year. Currently Edmonds is producing Toni Braxton’s follow-up to her 4.5-million-selling debut, and then he’ll help oversee the official album for the 1996 Olympics, which LaFace will release in the spring. Among those set to appear on it are Elton John, Brandy and Tevin Campbell. There’s even talk about the Rolling Stones chipping in with a song that Edmonds would co-write and produce.

But Edmonds is also starting work on a new album for himself, his first since 1993--which is certain to start talk again about his own star potential.

Doesn’t he ever wish he could be as famous as some of his clients?

“It’s a cool thing to be that famous, I guess, to a certain extent,” he says. “It certainly brings in a lot of money. But I don’t think it’s worth it. There’s not enough money that anybody could give me for me to switch positions with Michael Jackson. Three billion dollars, I wouldn’t switch, if that meant that I had to deal with what he deals with, or Whitney or Madonna. To be that large, it’s not worth it.”