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If Only You Knew how good Patti LaBelle’s sweet potato pie tastes, you would sing some of her greatest hits, too.
The legendary singer’s brand of sweet potato pies, which she sells in partnership with Wal-Mart, received an unexpected boost in sales earlier this month following the November 12 posting of a taste test review by Los Angeles-based performer James Wright Chanel.
Chanel’s viral clip of the coveted pie, which showed him dancing and singing some of LaBelle’s notable hits after taking a bite, resulted in the retail giant selling out of the baked dish and scrambling to get their hands on 2 million pounds of sweet potatoes to fulfill customer’s demands.
For LaBelle, the instant craze for her pies came as a surprise. In an interview with The Huffington Post, the Philadelphia-native shared her initial reaction to Chanel’s high praise, which she was made aware of while traveling to her show in London, when her son, Zuri, brought Chanel’s clip to her attention.
“I heard someone singing better than me and eating my pie. He was giving all kinds of love to Patti and that Patti Pie. So I just said, ‘My God who is this guy,’” LaBelle recalled before adding that she later called Chanel to personally thank him. “In September when the pies came out, they did really, really well, but once James Wright put that video up, it went crazy.
