Mariah Carey had a big job ahead of her when she paid tribute to the great Patti LaBelle, with LaBelle watching from the front row. Taking on the R&B icon’s signature song “If Only You Knew” was not for the faint of heart, but Carey brought the passion and power – not to mention the vocal chops – to make her tribute soar. When LaBelle stood to give Carey a standing ovation at the end, you know she’d hit the mark and then some!
LaBelle is Carey’s mentor and godmother, which made the tribute even more personal for the pair. Carey performed for LaBelle at the 1998 Essence Awards at Madison Square Garden. She opened the segment with LaBelle’s ’80s hit “If Only You Knew”, before segueing into a live favourite of the Philadelphia star, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. You could really see how emotional a moment it was for LaBelle at 1:18 as she reacted to Carey’s performance.
The medley’s song choices carried real historical resonance. “If Only You Knew,” written by Kenneth Gamble, Dexter Wansel and Cynthia Biggs, had given LaBelle a four-week run at the top of the R&B charts in early 1984. Meanwhile, the Judy Garland standard “Over the Rainbow” reached back even further into LaBelle’s catalog. In 1966, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles had released an entire album named after the tune, making the selection a smart tribute to her vocal group roots.
Beyond the catalog history, the tribute highlighted an authentic personal bond between the two vocalists. LaBelle has long served as a trusted mentor during Carey’s whirlwind career. That closeness translated directly into how Carey handled the music. Instead of turning the tribute into a display of vocal gymnastics, she leaned into the emotional core of each phrase, treating the moment like a heartfelt gift rather than a competition. LaBelle returned the favour for Carey in 2012, when she sang the younger star’s hit “Hero” for her at the BET Awards, leading to a tearful reaction from Carey.
The mutual admiration between the two did not stop at the Essence Awards podium. Later that same year, Carey joined LaBelle onstage at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom to share a roof-raising duet on Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real.” That live performance was captured on LaBelle’s 1998 album Live! One Night Only, an acclaimed release that eventually earned LaBelle a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.
Decades later, the tribute continues to draw devoted listeners online, where a remastered fan upload has gathered over 316,000 views. Viewers added comments such as “I’m obsessed with this performance! I think I watch it once a week to cheer me up. Mariah is perfection” and “You can always count on Mariah to make any song sound like it’s her own.”