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Raphael Saadiq | Interview

October 14, 2024 10 min read

With a legacy that stretches for decades and transcends genre, multi-disciplinarian Raphael Saadiq is one of modern music’s silent greats. Fresh from his work on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and a reunion tour with his 1980’s R&B supergroup Tony! Toni! Toné!, he tells Man About Town about keeping his ear to the ground and the joys of collaboration.

Words BEN TIBBITS

Raphael Saadiq carries a pureness in his creativity. For the American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer, there is no pretence in his sonic pursuits, no alter objective to his endeavours – merely, he loves music, and he loves to work with others. Although the 58-year-old has proven erudite as an artist in his own right, delivering five critically-lauded solo records across the years, for Saadiq, “it’s about collaboration,” he tells Man About Town. The double Grammy-winner cherishes working with others, whether that be on reflection looking back at his peerless list of collaborators from across the decades – from Erykah Badu to Stevie Wonder, Solange to Drake, D’Angelo to Justin Timberlake – or in breaking and developing new-found talent.

Saadiq’s career began as one third of R&B supergroup Tony! Toni! Toné!, which he formed in the late 1980’s alongside his brother D’Wayne and cousin Timothy Christian Riley, releasing four acclaimed records before disbanding in 1996. That is, until last year, when the group reunited for a US reunion tour on the 30th anniversary of their third LP Sons of Soul. It was the trio’s first tour in 25 years, with Saadiq not permitting audiences their phones throughout the show. “That was my gift back to them that they wouldn’t know is a gift,,” he says. “Because all the concerts that I watched as a youngster, and the reason why I’m a musician, is because I could focus at concerts because we didn’t have phones. I want to give them the same opportunity to accept the music the way we created it, with the spirit and the energy that it was made and I think it was a good thing from what the audience said back to us.”

It is perhaps his songwriting, production and nurturing of his collaborators that aggrandises Saadiq’s legacy superlatively. He’s worked with the best of the best, and this year once again found himself at the pinnacle of industry excellence. Cowboy Carter, global superstar Beyoncé’s eight studio album, was released in late March, and has been met with an emphatic reception, with many applauding her celebration and spotlight of country music as a genre. Saadiq was heavily involved in the album’s creation, co-writing lead single “Texas Hold ‘Em”, to name just one. For the polymath, his collaboration with Beyoncé “feels more like [working with] a bandmate,” and acts as the latest illustrious checkpoint for a visionary who continues to sit at the very top of pop music’s summit.

Saadiq’s impact stretches decades and shows no sign of slowing down. As he prepares to delve into his next round of high profile projects, he talks to Man About Town about navigating the industry, working with superstars and what still gets him excited.

How’s the year treating you, what’s going on?

Pretty good, I just came off a tour before the summer so I’ve just been really getting rid of things, cleaning up life and getting rid of old equipment and cleaning all the clothes and just getting rid of…you know, not being a hoarder, just getting rid of a lot of things.

What kind of shows have you played of late?

I did like 27 shows here in the States. Radio City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, D.C. I made my rounds with the band I started off with in the late-eighties and then we did a run. We hadn’t played together in close to thirty years. We did that and then I came off that and then I did one festival by myself and that was pretty much my year of performing.

Do you still have the same excitement and zest for performing as you did thirty years ago?

Yeah I do. I don’t think about live performances if I’m not doing it because I have other things that I enjoy. We’re remodelling at home, playing with new equipment, playing golf or hanging out with my mom or my nieces and nephews and family. But once I get the bug, I start rehearsing, I start practising and then that’s when it all hits me again, I’m ready to go. But I think I’ve always been like that actually, it’s not something that happened when I got older, I’ve never had the urge to perform until I had to.

Why was this the time to bring Tony! Toni! Toné back?

Where [the group] went was because of the first fans that we started off with when we released our first music to the world. And I want to give those people that are still around a chance to see us all together and it was like a thank you to the audience for me, that’s why I put it together.

Were you observing the people who came to the shows? What was the demographic like?

The demographic was everybody, I think the people that were our age were there, I think their kids were there, I think that it was cool that people who heard the music and had never seen us all together live wanted to see what it sounded like, what it felt like. It was live music, there’s no backing track. I took the phones too, there were no phones in the show and for a band to come out in 1988 and say, ‘There’s no phones,’ was a little different for people. But once people got there, they really enjoyed not having their phone.

Tony! Toni! Toné! broke up in 1996. Was this tour a bit of a full circle moment to close some chapters? Why did the group originally break up?

For me, [the reason they broke up was] just being young and confused and not understanding the industry. I don’t think it was too much about the three guys not getting along, it’s just, you know, you’re young and new figuring out the whole industry. I thought the best thing to do was to just be by yourself and figure your life out.

Do you think you’ve figured out the industry now?

Yeah, pretty much. [laughs]

So what’s the secret then? How do you navigate the industry?

I think the secret is you just have to love it. You have to love what you do, not what they do. It’s always gonna change. You have to figure out what your position is, how you want to play, what you enjoy about what you do. And I think that’s the only secret. We don’t know who’s gonna change, who’s gonna merge, who’s gonna stop accepting music, you know, how they’re gonna start streaming—stop taking cash and start taking subscriptions. Nobody could predict that as a musician, you can only do that as an owner, an executive, so why even worry about something that you can’t control? What you can control is what you love and that’s the music. You know, if you love music then you’ll find a way to do it. I’m not worried about money—not because I have money, but I just didn’t worry about it. I feel if you’re gifted and if you love what you do musically, the money’s gonna always come.

As someone who has been a gatekeeper of the industry in a lot of ways, do you worry about the current dynamic of the increased social media sensibility? Do you think the industry is in a healthy place right now?

I don’t think it’s in a healthy place, no. I mean, I don’t think the world’s in a healthy place, so the industry’s right there with it. It’s very full of clicks, you know, like actual clicks, soundbites and hot takes. But there are a lot of great musicians and great music that I hear and I Shazam things. When the world is going through turbulence, I think that’s when music is better, you know. Somebody’s always gonna be sitting at a piano or a guitar and singing with somebody and making it better.

Were you ever involved or were tempted to be involved more in the music business rather than the creation and the production of it?

I’ve thought about it but then I thought it’s not really a fit for me. But a lot of my friends are executives and we sit and chat and give our opinions. We come out on the same side a lot, everybody understands where it’s at. But I’m not interested in being a person who’s trying to fix it. Like I say, I have a lot of friends that are executives and we all talk shop, and everybody is just really trying to survive, you know.

Do you think the experience of being in groups like Tony Toni! Toné! equipped you in being a fully-fledged solo artist?

I’m a band person who loves participating in the band experience. Then after that, yeah, I think I had no other choice but to embark upon a solo career making records. It’s just easier at that point to go in the studio and make, you know, ten or twelve records and say, ‘Okay, this is an album, this is the concept, this is what it’s gonna look like, this is what it’s gonna sound like.’ When you’re a musician and you’re in this industry, you end up making records to feed your own spirit and it was just that time.

You haven’t, especially of late, been too regular in releasing solo albums. Is that because you’ve always just done that when there’s time, and there’s other pursuits that you’d rather have?

I’d rather be in the studio honestly. Figuratively, I love being in the studio atmosphere, I love walking around the studio and taking out instruments to play and figuring out new composition and going back and listening to records I’ve never heard by people, some older, some new, and that experience of recording is what I’m more interested in than solo records. And working with other artists, I love working with other artists because it’s a way to keep learning.

Do you keep your ear to the ground on what’s going on in the contemporary market? Do you follow the sub-scenes that pop up, whether it’s in America or globally?

Yeah, I do. I pretty much know about everything that comes out. But not because I sit back and, ‘Let me see what’s hot right now,’ I guess I’m just around a lot of different people who listen to a lot of different music and people. They’ll come up to me like, ‘Have you heard this? Have you heard of Cleo Sol? Have you heard this? Have you heard of this new producer? Have you heard Kendrick's first album, not the one with Dre? Have you heard of Khruangbin? Have you heard this?’ And in truth, I’ve probably already heard certain songs but not in its entirety but for some reason I’m always lucky that I’m around a bunch of cool people who listen to so many different things. I have some that don’t listen to any popular pop music at all, nothing. And then I have some people that listen to only pop music, then I have some people listen to hip-hop and I have people who listen to reggae music and just classical music. It’s so many different people.

One of your major projects of late was working with Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter, which has been widely recognised as one of the best albums of the year. How did your involvement first come about?

It came about through a friend of mine. I’m really good friends with the family too, I work with [Beyoncé’s sister] Solange. So I think when my name came up around her, I think she was like, ‘Ok, that’s a cool idea.’ And we talked about some ideas and I sent some ideas and they liked them and the rest was history. Then you’re back in a position where you’re working with a great artist that knows what they actually really want to do.

How did she match up to the greats of the last forty years?

Oh wow, she matched. She’s right there with the best. Her drive to work, how hard she works, and what she puts into vocals and producing too. I would say she’s more like a producer also, because she likes to arrange and write, so that’s a full, 360 type of musician who knows from A-Z concept, music, energy. If she wants a guitar solo, she knows, this is eight bars, maybe we need to have it sixteen. Like I say, I work better in band situations and working with Beyoncé, it’s like being in a band.

The album sees Beyoncé explore and interpret country music. We are seeing a big shift in popularity of the genre – to you, what is the renaissance down to?

Country has always been there. What Beyonce did is shed some light on the people that were already out there, that had been doing it. She used her influence and the eyes on her to say, ‘look over here.’ Her family’s from Louisiana and she’s from Houston so I’m sure she loves the twang of country music. She likes Dolly [Parton], she likes Charlie Parker. She studied it, she knew it. I have to give her credit for shedding a light on it.

Is there any genre that you won’t touch? That you don’t like and don’t want to work on?

I don’t know if there’s one. I think anything you can play music to I would probably like. I don’t think instrumentation lends itself to too many things that weren’t good in the beginning. Now somebody could take the instrument and do something terrible with it but when the genres start off, they’re pretty much great.

Lastly, as a highly decorated record producer and songwriter, what makes a good song?

When it’s effortless. When it’s three minutes and you feel something from the second it comes on, you know you’re on this journey and you don’t want it to stop in three minutes…and it actually stops in three minutes.

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Raphael Saadiq | Interview

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