BAKER BUTCHERED BABYFACE?

Rough times for Anita Baker - she's being sued by Babyface. No, not the criminal in a pushcahir from The Beano (note to self: check), but the producer.

Kenneth Babyface Edmonds reckons Baker split on a deal they'd made:

The lawsuit claims Baker refused to pay Edmonds producer's royalties equaling at least $100,000 from an estimated more than 500,000 albums sold.

Edmonds, 47, also alleges that he and Baker had an agreement to play four concerts together, but that Baker canceled two shows and refused to pay $150,000 for those dates.

You might wonder why they don't just go and have a look at the contract. Problem is, there isn't one. This was an oral agreement.

"Artists are used to working with producers, making the albums and doing the paperwork later ... It's always an oral agreement in this business," Edmonds' attorney Howard King said Friday.

It's not clear what King thinks the phrase "signing a record deal" refers to if he actually believes that the music industry doesn't go in for all that paperwork - our American legal expert suggested that perhaps he was confusing "producing an album which will sell half a million copies" with "sending a bloke round to fix the broken flush on your toilet", a job where commonly the paperwork is skipped. In this case, Edmond's legal success will depend on finding a witness who may have seen Baker slip a tenner in his shirt pocket and utter the words "if we keep the taxman out of this, there's a drink in it for you, too."

[Plug: Anita Baker's Rapture - 20 years old this year]

music anita baker kenneth babyface edmonds