Anita Baker’s Dec. 17 Houston performance at the Toyota Center gained inimical social media attention due to her behavior with fans and staff members.
The Houston performance was the twelfth leg of her 2023 The Songstress tour that started in Hollywood, FL, at the Hard Rock on Feb. 11 and ended on Dec. 23 at the Oakland Arena in Oakland, CA. A clip from the show posted by a TikToker displayed Baker singing her 1983 hit, “Feel the Need,” from her album The Songstress. Without breaking from the song, Anita motioned for a fan to “get back” and turn off their camera and used her iconic vocals to tell the person, “Turn off the camera, baby. I don’t know who you are. Move back!”
She continued, shooing the person off, “Get on back. I don’t know who that is.”
The 65-year-old singer proceeded with her performance, scatting.
Another TikTok clip displayed Auntie Anita“cutting up” at the same show, booting concertgoers from her front row.
“Security, help them out,” she said, pointing at fans in the front row. “And I mean out of my front row.”
The person who posted said the singer summoned security three times that night.
The Songstress tour has received a mixture of positive and negative reviews from fans on social media, with many adverse opinions swooping in after the Babyface controversy in the summer.
On May 10, concertgoers at the Pru Center in Newark were furious after they were forced to wait hours for Babyface to open Baker’s show only for a stagehand to inform the crowd of “technical difficulties.”
The same night, the “Whip Appeal” singer took to Twitter to apologize to fans and explained he was asked not to perform.
“I am truly sorry to my fans who have been waiting for us to hit the stage this evening at @PruCenter,” he tweeted. “I was asked not to perform in order to give Ms. Baker her space and time to perform her show in its entirety. My band and I are extremely saddened we didn’t get to perform for y’all tonight.”
Soon, the Twitter drama unfolded with Anita removing Babyface as an opener and writing, “After Silently, Enduring Cyber Bulling/Verbal Abuse & Threats of Violence from the Fan Base, of Our Special Guest/Support Act, in the Interest of Personal Safety. I will continue The Songstress Tour alone. Appropriate refunds will be made. Blessings.”
She also blamed him for his fanbase attacking her on social media.
Twitter users are cutting up about Auntie Anita.
“How you gon’ tell me I can’t record you at a concert I paid to be at? I’m helping to pay your bills, no?”
“This feels like a good time to say that I don’t like this lady’s behavior and she sounds like she got hot rice in her mouth when she sings.”
“Security, help them out…and I mean OUT of my front row” was NASTY, omg.”
“She’s 65. She can do/say what she wants.”
“I was there, so imma speak. People kept rushing to the stage and interrupting her, and security was just letting it happen. I would’ve done the same thing bc they were messing up other people’s experience who paid money, too. It was a sold-out arena she can’t just let everyone run up.”
“Y’all helped that woman fight to get her masters just for her to do this. Her peers been told y’all how she is.”
