Soul is much more than just a genre of music. For veterans like Raphael Saadiq, it’s a state of mind. The Oakland, California native has been 1987 since his days as frontman for funky R&B trio Tony! Toni! Tone!. Since then, Saadiq has crafted three solo albums, including his recently released The Way I See It. The Urban Daily catches up with Saadiq to talk his new retro-themed album, soul music and more.
The Urban Daily: So, tell me about the new album, The Way I See It.
Raphael Saadiq: It’s an album of collective thoughts, probably from the beginning of my musical journey in life. You know, things that I grew up loving [and] things that I have learned while being in groups, and producing and working with other artists. I was able to take that and put it all together with… People would call a retro or ’60s sound but I call it more of a good feeling sound, even though you can hear different ’60s styles, it’s more about the things that I love. It wasn’t set out to do some whole ’60s record. It was just like a lot of information that you just store and it was more about giving people a good feeling than it was than focusing on a certain area.
TUD: What was the inspiration for that good feeling?
RS: Umm, you run into a brick wall in life when you’re watching what everybody is doing, listening to music, politics, all the confusion and everything-music is one thing that brings a little bit of clarity to everybody so that was sort of the motivation behind it for me.
TUD: You have been known as much for your production as you have your own material, what’s the difference for you?
RS: The difference is when you’re producing other people; you’re putting your thoughts and their thoughts together and hoping they like your thoughts. Myself, it’s like a clear vision of my thoughts 100%. It’s exactly what I want to do and I have to be the person that goes and delivers in front of people so I guess that’s the only difference.
TUD: What your definition of soul is?
RS: My definition of soul is being able to reach all walks of life and being very content, focused and consistent on what you’re doing from the beginning. Most soul singers are very consistent from the beginning of their careers to the end of their careers. They actually know what they want to do from the beginning and they stay with it the whole time.
TUD: What’s a favorite soul song of yours?
RS: Wow, so many… Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming”; Marvin Gaye’s “Pride And Joy”, Eddie Kendricks’ “Girl You Need A Change Of Mind”
TUD: What is it about those songs?
RS: Eddie Kendrick has a sweet tenor, almost soprano falsetto that just reminds me of my family traveling from Oakland to L.A. in our Impala, just rolling. Everybody was listening to it; I didn’t know this guy was part of this big group. It was just a new song to me. That always stuck with me since I was kid. [On] “Pride And Joy” it was about James Jamison’s bass playing and Marvin and the whole Motown/Detroit connection and how it all melted together. Sam & Dave just reminds me of early quartet like Sam Cooke… A group of guys walking up to Stax [Studios] as a group and just coming together with a great rhythm section with Otis Redding, Sam, Dave, Flloyd… A lot of people cam through there. And you know how it really happened, they probably just stopped over there, knocked on the door and said, “We have a group.” It was that easy. Not that it was easy but you really had to… In those days, you really had to be good at what you do. It was not a talent show, but it was talent at its best. And talent at its best is still around, if they’re living. You don’t have to fight for press, press comes to you.
TUD: Do you consider yourself a soul singer?
RS: I consider myself a soul pioneer, meaning I was a musician before I was a singer. I just jumped into the singing thing by trial and error. I do what I can but there are others that I like more than I like myself or my voice but I do an ok job mimicking people that I like.
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