Posted on 08/08/2008
It’s very rare in this age of the public’s know-all, tell-all relationships with its celebrities to find someone that is unanimously liked. People might like what Oprah Winfrey represents, but they surely don’t all agree with her views or watch her show. Or any male star, be it a sports figure or businessman, gets credit for his community outreach or entrepreneurship, but is criticized for his womanizing. It’s hard to find a person who encapsulates everything you want to root for. Then there’s Raphael Saadiq, who perpetually flies under the radar despite a slew of successful ventures, and seems to avoid the hate machine. Of late sporting dapper, well-tailored suits, I met the crown prince of effortless cool clad in regular pants, a tee and cap, chilling at the SoHo Grand Hotel. My mission was to find out what makes someone with so many hits this easygoing and likeable. The answer was quite simple.

“That’s my personality really. It comes out through the record. I don’t try too hard, but I try to make it feel good.” No pun intended, I’m sure.

It’s this unassuming style that permeates all of Saadiq’s hits from his Tony! Toni! Tone! days to his writing and production for artists like D’Angelo, Erykah Badu and Macy Gray to his current upcoming release The Way I See It, which brings a fresh dose of soul music that could be borrowed directly from the Motown vault. With the doo-wop, dance rhythms of “Love That Girl” and “100 Yard Dash” already whetting appetites for the album’s September 16 release, Saadiq puts himself at the head of the pack of the industry’s latest soul revival. But for him, it’s not about bringing anything back, it’s just doing the music that comes naturally to him.

“I feel like the music I’m doing is already Black music, but which they choose to call ‘retro.’ Would you call Levi Stubbs from The Four Tops ‘retro?’ Or would you just call it great Black music? It’s historical music. I just think it’s great music that was made by Black people first, and that Black people forgot about.”

Despite his humble leanings, Saadiq must secretly know that he is constantly adding to the catalog of ‘great Black music.’ His resume is filled with classics that show a conscious effort to do music his way. Describing himself as “experimental,” an undercurrent of rebellion may be what drives his 20 years of staying power and consistency in an industry with a fickle memory. It shows in his approach for recording The Way I See It, holed up in his studio alone with vintage instruments and pictures of James Brown and J Dilla on his console: the hardest-working man in music alongside Dilla, another icon of focused brilliance, and then Saadiq, a precise hit maker in his own right.

The multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass guitar, keys) only enlisted the outside help of Greg Curtis (Yolanda Adams, Keyshia Cole) for some key piano portions, Paul Riser (arranger of Motown classics “My Girl,” “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and more) to do all of the string arrangements and Funk Brother Jack Ashford to handle the percussion work on the vibes and bells for the album. With Saadiq, it’s not a matter of overloading the album with high profile collaborators, though he did snag living legend Stevie Wonder for a guest spot on “Never Give You Up,”(an experience he compared to “having a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr.”), as much as it is finding the right connection, “the right thing.”

“[For The Way I See It], that thing is something that makes your body move, that makes your soul twitch… just something that would make the whole world move. Not just the Black crowd, but the whole world.”

Quoting “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Saadiq nails his signature sound as ‘downtown music.’

“It’s not neo-soul, I’ve never been a part of neo-soul. It was just a title that no artist ever came up with…Like you know Sam Cooke said, ‘When I go to the movies, when I go downtown, somebody always out there telling me I can’t hang around.’ People used to go downtown to hear good music. Motown - downtown to hear good music. Oakland - downtown it’s a lot of clubs, so I call it the ‘downtown sound.’

Strangely enough, he won’t be surprised if this nod to Black music doesn’t storm the airwaves in Black communities as one would expect. With more and more airtime given to gossipy DJs and a ten-song rotation of Lil Wayne and Chris Brown, there might not be as much room for true school R&B outside of a late night niche.

“Black radio should look back and see what Black music is. Some of them really don’t care…because they probably want Black checks instead of Black music.”

Ultimately, that’s why Saadiq wasn’t concerned with doing a record for radio. “I did it for me,” he said.

After receiving Grammy attention five times over for his solo debut and releasing two independent albums on his own Pookie Entertainment imprint, Saadiq doesn’t need any help following his instinct on how or what to produce. Off the beaten path is the only way he knows how to travel. He never feels pressure to bend to what’s popular.

“I just take a hard stance. If you’re gonna go out, go out swinging. Don’t go out guessing.”

- Candace L.