Entertainment

Keith Sweat and Bobby Brown Verzuz was an R&B feast

Sadly, Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat couldn't make it last forever Thursday night, but they kept the audience enthralled for every little step during their Verzuz.

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By
Lisa Respers France
, CNN
CNN — Sadly, Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat couldn't make it last forever Thursday night, but they kept the audience enthralled for every little step during their Verzuz.

The R&B legends were the latest to use their respective catalogs to "battle," this time as part of the virtual Essence Festival of Culture.

The pair had decades of hits to choose from and did a little Throwback Thursday by going with the original rules of Verzuz, which meant the artists could choose from any song they had been involved with creating.

For Brown, that meant his hit "Mr. Telephone Man" from the group that made him famous, New Edition, while Sweat reminded the world he had a hand in writing the Silk hit, "Freak Me."

But it was the classics the fans came for and classics they got, including Sweat's "Make It Last Forever" and Brown's "Roni."

Verzuz was founded by producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland early on in the pandemic and became a hit for Instagram Live. They sold the platform to Triller in March 2021.

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