UB Celebrates: ‘Waiting to Exhale’ Soundtrack 25 Years Later

Waiting to Exhale based on Terry McMillan’s best-selling book about four Black women was brought to the big screen in 1995 – directed by Forest Whitaker.

Today November 14th, we celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the iconic Soundtrack.

Forest Whitaker approached Babyface to do the film’s soundtrack and Whitney personally selected the artists who appeared on the soundtrack.

Initially, Babyface and Whitney Houston, wanted to try to find producers each singer was used to working with. “But as I was seeing different scenes of the movie,” he stated, “I just started writing songs until I had written everything. Then I had to produce it all.”

Babyface watched the scenes over and over until the lyrics came to him, “Every song was written to the actual film,” Face stated at the time. “When I looked at the clips, I had to write what I kind of heard at that point.”

Babyface produced the critically acclaimed, multi-platinum Waiting To Exhale soundtrack, writing all but one of the 16 featured songs and spinning off several #1 hits.

Babyface penned the tunes sung by Toni Braxton, Aretha Franklin, TLC, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, SWV, Brandy, Sonja Marie and DeDe O’Neal.

The first single from the “Waiting To Exhale” soundtrack “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)” entered at #1, displacing Mariah Carey‘s “Fantasy,” which held it for eight weeks.

The album grossed over $14 million in the first week alone and topped the Billboard charts for five weeks and would go on to sell over seven million copies earning 11 Grammy nominations.

Take A trip Down Memory Lane with “Waiting to Exhale.”