*Patti LaBelle is heading back to her roots. The legendary soul singer has spent the last year building something new — her first R&B album of original material in nearly two decades.
At 82, the icon says the music will be grounded in who she is today, not who she was. “I hope at 82 that I do age-appropriate music,” she told The Root. “It’s always gonna be something that I really feel that represents Patti LaBelle.”
Her most recent R&B studio project, “Patti LaBelle: Classic Moments,” dropped in 2005. She followed that with a Christmas collection in 2007 and a jazz record, “Bel Hommage,” in 2017.
Beyond the album, LaBelle co-hosted “Nightbirds: The Music of LaBelle,” a tribute concert at Lincoln Center on June 28. The event celebrated the 50th anniversary of her iconic group becoming the first African American female act to headline the Metropolitan Opera House.
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LaBelle turned 82 on May 24, and the music legend is showing no signs of stepping back. These days she fills her Saturday nights with card games and says she is “living it down, not up.”
Off the stage, she has channeled her energy into building a business around her love of cooking, including multiple bestselling cookbooks and a product line under the name “Patti’s Good Life.” But singing remained the center of everything. “Singing is my life,” she said on CBS Sunday Morning, describing her voice as “big. It’s loud. It’s soft. It can rap. It can do opera, on a good day.”
After six decades in the industry, LaBelle is not entertaining any talk of farewell tours or final curtain calls. “It’s never my last show. I’ll be singing until I can’t no more,” she said. And when it comes to the word legend, LaBelle is not bashful about accepting it. “I love it. I should be called, ‘Legend, legend, legend, legend.’ Yes. I love it. I have earned it. Yes, I have.”
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