Songfacts®:

• This song was co-written and co-produced by Jerry "Wonda" Duplessis, who helmed Fugees' 1996 album The Score and also acted as the group's bass guitarist. Fugees member and Wonda's cousin Wyclef Jean was the other co-writer and co-producer.
• Wonda recalled the story of the song in an interview with The Boombox: "It's actually a song that I remember me and Clef cooked the beat for on the bus while we were on tour," he said. "When Whitney showed up, she was with her daughter and I remember when we put her daughter [in front of the mic] and she said, 'Sing Mommy!' She loved it so much, it was like, she'd be like, 'Cue my daughter's voice loud!' We'd turn it up, she'd be like, 'No! Louder! Louder!"'
• The tune was a massive hit worldwide, becoming another one of Houston's signature songs. It topped the European Hot 100 Singles Chart for a week and also peaked at #1 in New Zealand.
• The song featured backing vocals from The Family Friends Community Choir.
• This was sampled by Duke Dumont on his 2014 UK chart-topper "I Got U." He told MTV UK: "With things like that you need to seek permission to use the vocal and Wyclef is kind of quite tough with his music. He doesn't let people use his music for a lot of things but he was willing for us to use the Whitney recording. That was quite nice getting a little bit of respect from his side. So that was a nice touch to it."