Babyface And Teddy Riley Had A Heavily-Flawed Instagram Battle Draw Plenty Of Fan Frustration

As the One World: Together At Home festival created by Lady Gaga with the help of the World Health Organization and Global Citizen took place on almost all platforms Saturday, Babyface and Teddy Riley took to Instagram Live for a battle of their respective catalogs. As part of the Versuz series hosted by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, battles from some of the music industry’s best have taken place over the past month, with the most recent one happening between RZA and DJ Premier.

Going up to bat against each other Saturday night, Babyface and Riley’s battle was originally supposed to take place on April 12 but was delayed as a result of Babyface’s coronavirus diagnosis. With both parties showing up to the battle as planned Saturday, viewers quickly realized that the only thing that went as planned was the battle itself happening.

With more than 400,000 viewers watching, Babyface and Teddy’s battle was soon riddled by audio issues.

“Doing too much,” as Swizz Beatz later said, compared to other Versuz battles. Teddy opted for an elaborate concert-like set up in his home. Unfortunately, the set up brought nothing but bothersome echoing among other issues. Through failed attempts at troubleshooting, the battle was eventually called off after an hour, hopefully to be rescheduled a second time.

Initial excitement for the battle from fans turned into sheer frustration at the absolute mess. Those who watched the battle fall apart right before their eyes shared their comical reactions on Twitter. Check out some reaction to the battle below.

A new date for the battle has not been revealed yet, but hopefully, the beauty of simplicity will be understood next time around.