But he, brother Dwayne and cousin Timothy Christian received their formal Tony! Toni! Toné! training on the road: Raphael and Christian toured as part of Sheila E’s band on Prince’s Parade Tour and Dwayne with gospel great Tramaine Hawkins. Exposure to Motown and Stax by his blues singer father led him to the bass and served as inspiration for his future style. Like almost every black musician and/or producer of note in his peer group, Saadiq developed and honed his musical chops in the church. This set both groups apart, establishing them early on as serious soul acts, and making them forerunners of the neo soul sound to come in the late ‘90s. They – and a few years later Mint Condition – were standouts as live musicians in an R&B landscape turning to sample-based production. TONY! TONI! TONÉ!ĭuring the birth and rise of New Jack Swing and then the subsequent evolution to Hip-Hop Soul, Tony! Toni! Toné! was one of the last of a dying R&B breed: the band. Let’s explore the iterations through which “Ray Ray” has blessed us over the years. Perhaps he transcends a simple R&B conversation as a self-identified Son of Soul (the difference between R&B and Soul is a topic for another day), but however you want to categorize him, he is not widely-enough acknowledged for how he’s kept us jamming, constantly, for three decades. But that’d be a misnomer, as he’s still had his hand in some of the most influential music for the current generation. Saadiq has become like a stealth superhero of soul for the last several years of his career, moving to the background as more writer/composer/musician, so the impulse for many might be to label him as an “old school” artist.
Ironically, one name that seldom appeared in the convo belongs to one of the most consistent and prolific presences in soul and R&B music for the last 30 years: Raphael Saadiq.
#Raphael saadiq ask of you higher learning full#
The subject matter is as varied as you'd expect: for every song that's charmingly simple and full of lighthearted romantic sentiments, there's something message-oriented, such as "Grown Folks" (in which Saadiq tries on Curtis Mayfield's falsetto and songwriting style, proclaiming that the adults "need more help than the children do").While a consensus was never reached, the heated discussion illustrated how much the definitions and ideas of R&B and R&B stars varies between age groups. The album is a little funkier and a lot more energetic than 2002's Instant Vintage, yet just as full of Saadiq's stylish flourishes. Ray Ray occasionally loses focus, slipping into moments that are either undercooked or worthy of the cutting room, but it's enjoyable enough to keep his followers happy and will certainly act as a remedy for those who don't like the gold-bricked path being taken by mainstream R&B.
Though he has given plenty of his ideas to like-minded artists like Jill Scott, Kelis, Truth Hurts, Mos Def, Amp Fiddler, and Teedra Moses (who guests on two songs here), his creative well seems to be pretty much bottomless. It's another ambitious release from Raphael Saadiq, who has continued to be very active as a musician, producer, and songwriter for other artists. Ray Ray looks more like a concept album - about a Blaxploitation hero - than it sounds like one.