Raphael Saadiq Was Never Just ‘Neo-Soul’

Raphael Saadiq has always been a quiet force, working behind the scenes and shaping some of music’s most indelible sounds. 

From working with Beyoncé, Solange and Issa Rae to Tony! Toni! Toné!’s 2023 reunion tour, Lucy Pearl’s “You” going viral with its own line dance on TikTok, his 2025 No Bandwidth tour, and of course, his work on Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Saadiq’s recent emergence back into the spotlight serves as a reintroduction of sorts — one that challenges the industry label of “neo-soul.”

“Raphael Saadiq, D’Angelo and Maxwell are not ‘neo-soul’ artists. Sorry, but that’s the truth,” he wrote on Instagram. Explaining, “Neo-soul was a term created by one Black executive purely as shorthand. It helped labels internally identify which acts would not require crossover marketing budgets — those funds were reserved for pop boy bands [...] It had nothing to do with the sound of the music.” 

Even though he was part of the Soulquarian movement, Saadiq consistently proved to be an amalgamation of different genres and sounds as heard at his recent set at Blue Note Los Angeles.

Under hues of blue paired with the illuminated glow of warm candlelight, guests murmured eagerly as they waited for the singer-songwriter-producer to hit the stage for his sold-out, one-night-only performance. Dubbed as “A Special Evening With Raphael Saadiq,” the intimate concert came ahead of the 2026 Oscars where he’s nominated for Best Original Song with “I Lied To You” from the aforementioned critically-acclaimed and award-winning film. 

The show was similar to last year’s No Bandwidth tour — a one-man, phone-free show rooted in musicianship and storytelling spanning his three-decade-long career. This time, however, he wasn’t embarking on this musical reflection alone. He and his band, including fellow founding Tony! Toni! Toné! member Timothy Christian Riley took the audience on a ride through hits and anecdotes. 

During the two-hour set, Saadiq praised Al Green and recalled how Earth, Wind & Fire set “the bar” for him. He’d previously quipped, “I wanted to be the whole band. The bar was high.” Growing up, his “militant” father acknowledged his talent early on, telling folks “he kinda got something.” However, it was his brother, the late D’wayne Wiggins, who was the person he wanted to emulate the most. 

As the band played an acoustic version of “(Lay Your Head On My) Pillow,” Saadiq opened up about his time working alongside his brother and cousin. “We had a lot of good times, right? You know I’d recall all the laughs and inside jokes we had as brothers. All of us. Tim is like my brother, too. Driving on the 5 highway, writing songs in the car, thinking we were The Isley Brothers a lot. We swore up and down we were The Isley Brothers. You couldn’t tell us nothing,” he shared. 

The three-time Grammy winner spoke on the fact that there weren’t any new bands being created when Tony! Toni! Toné! came onto the scene. D’wayne described them as “a self-contained band” to Wax Poetics in 2016, adding, “We had our show together long before we got a record deal. We performed our songs onstage doing cartwheels and splits and everything else. We just brought everything we had to the table and it really worked for us.”

Saadiq added, “It’s funny sometimes when I'm driving around and I turn on the radio station and hear some of the music that we made. It’s really surprising to me that we made the music that we made because, honestly, we didn’t know what we were doing. We just lucked up, got a record deal, and we had a responsibility. We really respected the people that came before us and the kids that [are] after us right now. We respect everybody [...] We wanted to do our best at what we were doing, no matter the genre.” 

This latter part of the sentiment fuels his commentary on the term, neo-soul, and why he doesn’t define himself as such. During a medley of songs he produced, including Total’s “Kissin’ You,” Bilal’s “Soul Sista,” Beyoncé’s “Cuff It,” and D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” Saadiq declared, “I think I’m one of the best collaborators around. It may sound kinda vain, but I’m one of the best. The damn best.”

Despite the exclusion of one of his greatest collaborative efforts, Lucy Pearl — which he called “Lucifer’s Pearl” in 2025 because he felt the band was a “nightmare” — the Blue Note set didn’t feel incomplete. Classic hits came from that blip in his career, but it was wise for him to not waste time and instead he opted to shed light on much more significant, career-defining moments. It was simply a celebration of eras that helped shape who Saadiq is today, and based on the audience’s reaction, you really just had to be there.