Raphael Saadiq's Secret To Creative Success: 'Dare To Suck'

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Speaker 2 This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Raphael Sadiq, a Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer.

Speaker 2 He just announced an extended national tour of his one-man show, No Bandwidth, One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits.

Speaker 2 It started at the Apollo Theater in Harlem with sold-out performances in Los Angeles and Oakland, and now extends through the fall.

Speaker 2 With nothing more than a mic, a few instruments, and his stories, Sadiq instructed that everyone in the audience lock their phones away as he revisited the highlights, heartbreaks, and hits that have shaped his music career.

Speaker 2 From his early days with Tony Tony Tony to his work with Lucy Pearl and through solo albums like Instant Vintage and Jimmy Lee. Here's a cut from his 2002 autobiographical hit, Still Ray.

Speaker 3 So I can see your heart.

Speaker 3 Oh, night can never come

Speaker 3 soon enough for me.

Speaker 3 I watch the sky all day.

Speaker 3 Night is where I find

Speaker 3 you and peace of mind.

Speaker 3 My days are filled with grief.

Speaker 3 That's why I truly

Speaker 3 give you what you need

Speaker 3 because you love me for me.

Speaker 2 Raphael Sadiq has also built a career writing collaborating with some of the biggest names in music, including Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, Solange, D'Angelo, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and Erica Badu.

Speaker 2 Most recently, he co-wrote the song I Lied to You for Ryan Kugler's film Sinners, a gospel blues ballad that served as the emotional centerpiece of the film, inspired by his own church roots and gospel upbringing.

Speaker 2 Rafael Sadiq, welcome to Fresh Air.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Good to be here.

Speaker 2 No phones, a one-man show. Yeah.
Several hours, just you locked into the audience. Why did you want the audience to put away their phones?

Speaker 4 Taking the phones away just made it so I can give people the same opportunity that I had as a young, as a shorty going to the Oakland Coliseum and watching the OJs.

Speaker 4 I mean, I could see them walking up the stairs. I could see the lights on the shoes.
I could see the lights on the amps. I paid attention to so much detail.
Now

Speaker 4 when you have phones in front of you, it's just sort of, you see people stiff and nobody's moving in the crowd yes it looks look like it's robots not really real people

Speaker 4 so when there's no phones you know I don't know I don't I just I like it the testimonies I heard people said well

Speaker 4 they got a chance to hug kiss dance with each other and things that they don't do like it was you know see Earthman and Fire the show you're singing you know

Speaker 4 You got your fists pumping, you dancing, you have your hands are free. Trying to get people a free moment.
I hope they enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 You pay tribute at the concert to your brother, Dwayne Wiggins. You all co-founded Tony Tony Tony.
He passed away earlier this year. I want to offer my condolences first as a fan.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 He was your Michael Jordan growing up.

Speaker 2 He taught you how to play instruments. You played a bunch of instruments for this tour by yourself.
And he was one of those folks that was instrumental in teaching you.

Speaker 4 Yes, he was definitely inspiring the whole time.

Speaker 4 He was already killing it pretty much as a kid, you know, in the neighborhood.

Speaker 4 We live in two separate homes. You know, we have the same fathers, not the same mother.
So we had two totally different lives when it came to what our households were like.

Speaker 4 But as far as music, he sort of showed me the way because he loved music so much. I loved it too.
He definitely was the guy like, oh, he could play bass.

Speaker 4 Told my dad, dad, you know, like, you know, he could play. And if you don't buy him a bass, I'm going to buy it for him.
You know, he was that type of dude, like, always want to help.

Speaker 2 One thing that

Speaker 2 is so interesting about you, 14 siblings, 14 brothers and sisters.

Speaker 4 Well, that's including my dad's family before me. So

Speaker 4 everybody in that 14, I'm the youngest boy.

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 4 Didn't there be a younger girl from the other side? But at my house, I was the youngest. So it was two girls and two boys, and I was the youngest in that house.

Speaker 4 But I was born late, so I was the only one in the house the whole time.

Speaker 2 You all are so well known in Oakland because that's where you then grew up.

Speaker 2 And one of the things that you've been doing lately, especially over the last few years, is really revealing for us, even in this one-man show, the beautiful moments, the things that make you who you are, but also the tragedies.

Speaker 2 Of your 14 siblings, you've lost several of them. Now, is it, it's five now, including Dwayne.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's five now yeah yeah it's five um

Speaker 4 it's it's life you know you

Speaker 4 I started seeing it from seven seven years old my first brother was Alvie Alvie Wiggins yeah we we've lost a few but

Speaker 2 in our neighborhood it doesn't really I hate to say it it's kind of normal It's normal, but it's something that just over the last few years, you've really been sitting with and talking about publicly.

Speaker 2 This one-man show, I mean, you spend a lot of time talking about those influences of your siblings who have passed away. What is it about now that you want it to be this revealing?

Speaker 4 I've always talked about it, you know, with friends. I think for the one-man show,

Speaker 4 I wanted people to know the trajectory of what, of my life, because you know the music.

Speaker 4 You hear the music, you hear all the pretty things. And

Speaker 4 I wanted people

Speaker 4 to see and hear

Speaker 4 you can still show someone a beautiful size through dark times. And it made sense to talk about it

Speaker 4 in detail because sometimes people think they know you. And I'm like, okay, you do know me.
We did grow up together through music, but here's the other side.

Speaker 2 One of those examples of something that you created that was beautiful out of tragedy was the hit song that everybody knows, everyone loves from Tony, Tony, Tony.

Speaker 2 It never rains in Southern California. And I want to play a little bit of it because

Speaker 2 I was really surprised to hear that it came from a grief-stricken place. Let's listen to a little.

Speaker 2 You know the rest of the terrain. Ain't never rained in Southern California.

Speaker 3 It never rains in Southern California.

Speaker 3 Maybe I'll take a flight out tonight, and you can pick me up for me.

Speaker 3 I don't know what airline girl, but I know we won't be delayed. Cause they tell me it never rains in Southern California.

Speaker 3 They tell me it never rains in Southern Canada.

Speaker 2 That's my guest today, Rafael Sadiq is part of the group Tony Tony Tony singing his 1990 hit, It Never Rains in Southern California. That was written around the same time you lost your sister Sarah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was. It was written by Timothy Christian Riley, and he brought it to me.
And we were working on it in Sausalito at the time. And I got a phone call that my sister got in a car accident.

Speaker 4 and she was on life support.

Speaker 4 So I actually went to the hospital and

Speaker 4 they pulled her off the machine that same time I went there. And then I had to go back to the studio to finish the song.

Speaker 4 And, you know, so that's, that's not how it came about, but that's how it got finished.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm really struck by you saying that of all of that you've dealt with and experienced, you wanted to show people like a place of beauty that can come out of that grief-stricken place.

Speaker 2 Having to get on the mic and sing this beautiful song that is, it's also pretty romantic. It is like the song that kind of folks that are in new young love kind of tap into.

Speaker 2 At least I did when I was that age. I think that's just really powerful.
It's kind of like the hallmark of your music.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it definitely is.

Speaker 4 It comes with a lot of influences too, you know, from different artists. You know, when you're singing a slow song,

Speaker 4 sort of this love

Speaker 4 ballad, and this is our second album. So at this point, I'm just figuring out how to sing this type of record.
So you're discovering things about your voice.

Speaker 4 You're discovering things about the music, how to complete it.

Speaker 4 And you're thinking about records you heard from Jeffrey Osborne to Lionel Ritchie and the Commodores to Earth, Wind and Fire, Switch, The Barge.

Speaker 4 I mean, you have all these different things like going through your head. all these things that you're not even sharing with the people that you're working on the song with.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 When did you find your voice? When did you know that you could sing?

Speaker 4 I found my voice probably in a Union Baptist church on 71st Avenue in Oakland, California.

Speaker 4 I was asked to sing a song with all the tiny tots. I had to sing a song on Easter Sunday.

Speaker 4 And this lady named Color Sister Nation, she was the pastor's wife. She handed me a piece of paper and said, you're singing this song on Sunday.
We got a chance to rehearse it one time.

Speaker 4 And then on Sunday, you're singing. How old were you? I don't know, seven.
Yeah, yeah. And I was singing a song, and people started responding when I was singing.

Speaker 4 The song was embarrassing that the words, it was this gospel song. It was like, you know, if I was naked without bread or meat, and my friends was like in the audience crying, laughing.

Speaker 4 But when I sang it at church, people responded like, go, go, you know. And I heard it, but it more or less made me more nervous, you know, because they kept responding.
like I was doing a good job.

Speaker 4 And then I didn't do it anymore. I didn't do it anymore until

Speaker 4 I played in some local bands and I was playing cover songs. I would sing

Speaker 4 another song by Mr. Mr.
called Broken Wings. I sang now like in the 12th grade, playing bass and singing.
I sang the single Life by Cameo.

Speaker 4 Those were the next songs I sang. And then pretty much, I didn't like being a front guy.

Speaker 3 I didn't want to be a front guy. Did you do that?

Speaker 4 No, I was playing in a band where there was... two other lead singers and I would those are just two songs that I sang in the band.

Speaker 4 And when the Tony started, ended up singing

Speaker 3 Lil Lil Walter.

Speaker 4 And the producers, Danny and Tommy, thought that I should sing more songs. And that's how I became a front guy.

Speaker 2 So it wasn't always in the plan for you to be a friend guy.

Speaker 4 Oh, never. I don't want to be a front guy.
I didn't want to be a front guy at all. I wanted to play bass

Speaker 4 for people who sing really good and maybe be on a big tour. I mean,

Speaker 4 my dream would have been like early in my career to play for the Stones,

Speaker 4 you know, and just be gone, you know, play for some big group that does stadiums and just be gone which you you actually had a chance to do that mick jagger asked you to play with them on the grammys in 2011 yeah see uh solomon burks he had passed away and they recorded one of his big songs and i think his family solomon burks family called mick they're really good friends and asked him what um he performed for their dad on the Grammys.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 Mick thought to call me to assist him. And that was so cool because we got a chance to rehearse and play blues.
He loves Holland Wolf and Buddy Guy, Aubrey King, and he's a blues guy.

Speaker 4 So it was like the younger blues guy meeting another guy who was inspired by black people's music.

Speaker 2 That's so cool. I mean, I'm just thinking about your dream always to be able to play with a group like that.
And then you had that dream fulfilled by them asking for you.

Speaker 2 What do you remember most about that experience?

Speaker 4 I think the best thing hanging out with Mick was we both agreed like we had more fun at rehearsal than we did at the Grammys.

Speaker 3 Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because he pulled out his harp and we played blues, you know, and my band took some solos. They're like blues guys.

Speaker 4 And so it made sense for us to like play together and really have conversations about all the all the blues guys I didn't get a chance to meet.

Speaker 4 The Stones actually hung out with these guys at Chess Records.

Speaker 2 I think we know we could hear the influences of all those greats from Mick, but like to hear him tell you those stories, that's pretty special.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was what I expected because it would be like talking to my grandfather.

Speaker 4 The way he would say Holland Wolf was acting, that's the way my grandfather would act, or that's just the way some of the older men I play with.

Speaker 4 It's those characters, you know, they're going to say what they want to say, they're going to have a shotgun with them, you know, with shotgun or shotgun blues, you know. So

Speaker 4 he just confirmed it.

Speaker 2 You've always gravitated to music of previous generations. You're like an old soul, like in modern packaging.
What is it about that older music that you feel like is just always you've tapped into?

Speaker 4 It has a feeling. It has a feeling.
And the late grade Isaac Hayes told me there's no such thing of old school. It's either you've been to school or you didn't.

Speaker 3 Right. I was schooled.

Speaker 4 Music, the feeling of music doesn't change. So you want to get the feeling from way, way back and you want to take that feeling and inject it to something new.

Speaker 4 I didn't know that I was doing that. It's just something that I got turned out on when I was a kid.
You know, it's whatever you get turned out by when you're young is what you end up being.

Speaker 2 What do you love about the bass in particular?

Speaker 4 Bass made me feel big. I was so little.

Speaker 4 No, probably 99 pounds when I was that age.

Speaker 4 Basses had this big sound.

Speaker 4 I heard it on Motown Records like Pride and Joy by Marvin Gaye. And I didn't know what I was hearing.
And later on, I will find out I was listening to one of the greatest bass players of

Speaker 3 all times.

Speaker 4 Who was it? James Jamerson.

Speaker 2 I want to ask you about a project that you just got done completing that we've all experienced sinners.

Speaker 2 What a movie. And you co-wrote the film's signature song, I Lied to You, with Ludwig Gorinson.

Speaker 2 It's performed by Miles Canton. He's got like this deep, resonant voice that feels like it's come from another time.
He's so young, but he's got like this really rich voice.

Speaker 2 And that song that you co-wrote, it really serves as this emotional centerpiece for the film. It's a pivotal moment.
First off, I want to know, how did that opportunity come your way?

Speaker 3 Well, Ryan Kooglish from Oakland.

Speaker 4 I'm a huge fan of, you know, of the person that guy is. And then when this opportunity came, he called me and told me about it and told me what he was thinking about.

Speaker 4 Gave me a synopsis of the film, and it was about blues and right up my alley-you know, it's my background too.

Speaker 4 And they were about to leave New Orleans to shoot it.

Speaker 4 And they gave me the story, and I'm thinking, When do you want it done? And they was like, Can we do it now?

Speaker 4 So, I just started playing the guitar lick, and I just wrote the lyrics right there.

Speaker 2 Let's listen to a little bit of it.

Speaker 4 Something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time

Speaker 3 It might hurt you Hope you don't lose your mind

Speaker 3 Well, I was just a boy

Speaker 3 About eight years old

Speaker 3 You threw me a Bible

Speaker 3 on that Mississippi Road

Speaker 3 See I love you Papa,

Speaker 3 you did all you could do

Speaker 3 And they say the truth hurts

Speaker 4 So I lied to you

Speaker 4 Yes, I lied to you

Speaker 3 I love the papers.

Speaker 2 That was the song I Lied to You from the movie Sinners, which my guest today, Raphael Sadiq co-wrote. Tell me about that line.
They say the truth hurts, so I lied to you. You wrote that, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I did, yeah. Yeah, tell me about that line.

Speaker 4 Well, that's a little mischievous boy

Speaker 3 line.

Speaker 4 You know, I should think about if you lied to your girlfriend, and it's like you're like, well, they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you. I didn't want to hurt you, so I just lied.

Speaker 4 I've always had that in my head, that concept of a song.

Speaker 3 Why do you think?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Because I thought it would always be a great blue song to take that big voice of Miles.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Miles sounds like he's

Speaker 4 60.

Speaker 3 Right? I know.

Speaker 4 Young dude, like 19 or something. Right.
So once Ryan told me about the movie, sort of changed the words around from what I thought I could say. Because now I'm thinking about a pastor, a father.

Speaker 2 Right, because in the storyline, it is Miles talking to his father, who's a pastor. Right.

Speaker 4 So not telling the truth, but he loves his music.

Speaker 3 About his music.

Speaker 4 He loves his dad, but he loves music. Yep.
Doesn't want to hurt his dad to say, I want to go play in this club because I still love the Lord. I still love church.

Speaker 1 But dad, I got to go.

Speaker 4 Maybe I'll make it back.

Speaker 2 Is it true? I heard this. I don't know if it's true, but that you love soundtracks and scoring.

Speaker 2 Like you'll be at home watching a movie or show and then just start for yourself to think about a soundtrack or a song that could be like the score.

Speaker 4 Yeah, if I'm watching a movie, I'll just turn the volume completely down and I'll start scoring. Like start seeing what I would do versus what they're doing.
That's how I kind of learned.

Speaker 2 Wait, can you give me some examples when you've done that?

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 there's a movie,

Speaker 4 it's about this kid who played football at Syracuse.

Speaker 4 And Jim Brown was his mentor.

Speaker 4 And they had an Elvis Presley song in it at first, and they wanted this montage to happen when this kid is traveling from the East Coast to the South.

Speaker 4 And when he reaches the South, there's all these black kids on the side with signs with his name.

Speaker 4 Because in the South, back in the day, you can run the football all the way to the five-yard line, but you couldn't punch it in for a touchdown if you're black.

Speaker 4 Right, so not in the south. Yeah.
So the black kids were like chanting him on. They wanted him to run through and make a touchdown.
So I had to turn that down and write a song over the top of that.

Speaker 4 And that was a song called Keep Marching. That was on the record.
It's called The Way I See It, my 60s album. And instead of me giving the song to the film, I kept it.

Speaker 4 It's the biggest license song I ever had.

Speaker 4 You gotta keep on.

Speaker 4 Keep marching on.

Speaker 4 Keep marching on.

Speaker 4 You just gotta keep on.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. Keep marching.
Keep marching on.

Speaker 4 Keep marching on.

Speaker 4 Keep.

Speaker 4 Keep mowing.

Speaker 2 Our guest today is Grammy Award-winning musician Rafael Sadiq. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

Speaker 2 When a blue goes shine, and a risk go cry,

Speaker 2 and the clown is wearing no makeup.

Speaker 2 You got to get up and run,

Speaker 2 you got to get up and stride. You got to put up your pride into making it.

Speaker 2 You got to keep always

Speaker 2 watching.

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Speaker 2 I want to talk to you just a little bit about your process and writing songs for other people too.

Speaker 2 Beyonce's album, Cowboy Carter, won Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the Grammys, and you produced and wrote two of the songs, 16 Carriages and Bodyguard. Congratulations.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 You know, working with a Miss Beyonce

Speaker 4 is, I know what hard work is, and I respect people that work hard. You know, you don't even have to be around them to know.

Speaker 4 You could just look at the production, amount of work they put into a show or when they come out with music or whatever.

Speaker 4 But being in the room and working with people, you really get to see like how hard they work.

Speaker 2 I've heard you say you don't remember the experience, but one thing you do remember is that you guys had a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 The good time is you're around a lot of great people, a lot of great thinkers. Everybody's a thinker in the room.
It's sort of like I was at my studio for a lot of it on my own.

Speaker 4 But sometimes I went to the studio where it was like five or six rooms and different people working in different studios.

Speaker 4 And you can go grab, you know, the dream out of a room, which is an amazing songwriter, producer. Any musician is on

Speaker 3 uncalled.

Speaker 4 I would just dream up, like, call this guy, call this guy. And that's, that's how Quincy Jones would do it.
You got to be able to have that book, that black book to call the right musicians.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 4 that's why music suffers to me now.

Speaker 4 You're not making a phone call, so everything sounds the same. You're not giving different energy, different spirits, different personalities on music.
You need different personalities.

Speaker 4 It's not about you.

Speaker 3 It's about everybody else and then you.

Speaker 4 That's what made great records. And that's what the fun thing about Beyonce's record was.

Speaker 2 This particular song, Bodyguard, though,

Speaker 2 you presented that to Beyoncé, but that wasn't necessarily the song she can choose and she chose that of yours.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that song, I was going through my Dropbox and I was playing playing songs in a room with her. She was in the room, Jay-Z's in the room, Jay, and a few, some of the staff.

Speaker 4 And I was looking for a song.

Speaker 4 I don't think the phone was even hooked up to the speakers. And I played it, and I stopped it real quick, because that's not the song I wanted to play.

Speaker 4 And I didn't think it was stuff that she even liked. But she caught it in like two seconds.
She goes, what? What's that?

Speaker 4 And I'm going, oh, that's

Speaker 4 this idea that I had. And I played it.
And she's like, what are you doing with it? And that's how it got on the record.

Speaker 2 I want to play a little bit of bodyguard. And it actually is at the point where there's like this solo guitar.
Let's listen.

Speaker 2 I could be your butterfly.

Speaker 2 Please let me be your capital.

Speaker 2 Please let me be your lifeguard.

Speaker 2 Would you let me ride, Shakun,

Speaker 2 Sharkhood?

Speaker 2 That was Beyonce singing her award-winning song, Bodyguard, written by my guest today, Raphael Sadiq.

Speaker 2 That guitar at the end, that was also not planned, right?

Speaker 2 Is that you?

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's me. Yeah.

Speaker 4 She wanted a solo. B wanted a solo.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 4 I did a solo, and she was like, can we make it longer? And you never hear that from an artist in 2025. Playing a guitar solo.

Speaker 4 They want it longer, but she knows her audience, and she knows that is rare. And I think we could do that.

Speaker 4 We can have a 16-bar solo on this record. So that was a little bit of pressure to go back in there and play like a 16-bar solo.

Speaker 4 Because I would have called my boy, I would have called Eric Gells. Who is Eric Gails? Eric Gells is one of the most amazing guitar players in the world today.
He's from Memphis, Delta Blues.

Speaker 4 He was the guy that's playing it. He played a lot of guitar and centers.

Speaker 4 But I would have called him to play, but he was on tour. So I had to play it.
And it came out good.

Speaker 2 I love how I had to play

Speaker 3 it

Speaker 3 I like spreading I like spreading it around. Yeah

Speaker 3 I think that like

Speaker 2 something about that about Beyonce choosing that song where you mistakenly played it but then you're like oh and she says no what is that

Speaker 2 I've heard you say both she and Solange because you wrote Cranes in the sky for a seat at the table her album that they make choices like that.

Speaker 2 It's sort of like the mark of a great musician is to to go outside the box, the places that aren't safe.

Speaker 2 It just made me very interested to know more about how you write these songs. Many times they're for yourself.
And then many years later, you might present them to an artist like Beyoncé or Solange.

Speaker 2 You can tell about just how brave they are and how far they're going to go with it based on the choices they make on your social sciences.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I guess it's in the water in Houston.
That family, both of them are like

Speaker 4 really particular about what they like as far as design, style, you know, staging.

Speaker 4 And you know what you can pull off.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 4 it's not a lot of artists that take those chances. They take chances.
And music is about taking chances, taking risks,

Speaker 4 lasting longer than...

Speaker 4 your teacher or your executives or labels or anything like that. You know, for me, it's like, what chance are you you going to take if

Speaker 4 you're playing music?

Speaker 4 You have to dare to suck. And a lot of people

Speaker 4 don't do that. I don't fault people that don't do that.
But when you run into people that do, you have to know, like,

Speaker 4 I'm going to try myself. I'm going to try to not be different.
I'm going to try to do something that I like first.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 4 secondly, I hope it's the audience that likes it also. But first, I have to like it.

Speaker 2 Have you always been like that for yourself as an artist, dare to suck?

Speaker 4 I've always been like that. I didn't know what I was doing until I had to find the words later on through different people.

Speaker 4 You know, dare to suck came from this

Speaker 4 acting coach that I was working with one time. And she's like, you got to dare to suck.
And I'm like, wow, that's pretty good because I did suck at acting.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 4 I was like, so that's a good point.

Speaker 4 And I just took that and ran with that. Then I realized in music, I did that a lot because, you know,

Speaker 4 you're not always going to be good.

Speaker 3 Acting.

Speaker 4 Well, I took an acting class because it wasn't for acting. It was for stage.
I just wanted to get a little bit past myself.

Speaker 4 You know, I didn't want to be always thinking I was this artist Raphael Sadiq.

Speaker 4 It's like, no, I wanted to get out that shell and just, you you know walk in a room with people where I wasn't good and where we have these

Speaker 4 these different drills that we do that I was gonna be pretty embarrassed to do them in front of people or read a monologue and and have better people in the class what you know way better than me that was killing it and I had to stand up in front of this class I was like wow they're like we have like like five minutes to learn this piece and you got to read it in front of people they're gonna film you and then the class is gonna watch it back and critique you that was the worst thing I ever heard in my life And I did it, you know.

Speaker 4 It did suck, but I did it, you know.

Speaker 2 Is there a particular lesson from that that stuck with you that you use on stage now as just a part of your act?

Speaker 4 What I learned from it is, you know, you have to walk out there and, you know, take it all in. Especially it really came to be a great part for my one-man show because it's just me.

Speaker 4 And I have to walk out. to an audience where I'm not,

Speaker 4 you know, you don't hear a drum roll in the beginning. It's just me.
I open it up. I say something to the audience.
And they're used to me coming out, you know,

Speaker 4 you know, it's not that. This is something else.
And so I think, you know,

Speaker 4 I really like good acting. I'm a huge fan of like Most Death, Jeffrey Wright, Mr.
Cheeto.

Speaker 2 Don Cheeto. Don,

Speaker 4 who takes that craft really seriously.

Speaker 2 So, like you do with music.

Speaker 4 Like I do with music. Denzel, you know, I used to see like Denzel like every other few days.
We used to work out the same boxing gym.

Speaker 4 And he's just so cool, so solid.

Speaker 2 Boxing.

Speaker 2 Yeah. You're a big boxer.

Speaker 4 No, no. I'm not a big boxer.

Speaker 3 No. I love boxing.

Speaker 4 I did train boxing, but I trained it

Speaker 4 to be in shape. I did spar a little bit, you know, but I was too old already to begin hit in my head.
Yeah. And it's no way not to get hit in your head.

Speaker 4 But what boxing does for you, it just gives you, you don't really fight. You know, you're not out there fighting all the time.
So

Speaker 4 you just need to know how to use your hands. My dad was a boxer.
You know, somebody walk up on you, just got to know you can give them, you know, a two-piece and a biscuit.

Speaker 4 You're not going to be running. You know, if you get hit in your face, you're not going to stop fighting.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 2 When did you learn that?

Speaker 4 Oh, I come from a fighting family. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I come from a fighting family, like

Speaker 4 fighting neighbors, you know, but all in fun, you know.

Speaker 4 So I opened up a boxing gym in Modesto, California with my nephew Alvie Wiggins, called Charlie Ray Boxing.

Speaker 4 And it was more to get kids off the street, give them a place to go to be, you know, educate them about, you know, school and also how to use their hands and how to commit to something.

Speaker 4 And so it's over like 30, 30, 40 kids that go there and they train, they box, and they go, they get out of school, they do their homework, and then they have a place to go, talk to adults.

Speaker 4 And this one kid used to be scared to walk home because people bothered him.

Speaker 4 He joined the gym and two months later, you want to ride home? He was like, no.

Speaker 3 I got this. I'm walking home.
Wow. He's ready.

Speaker 2 If you're just joining us, my guest is Raphael Sadiq, a Grammy Award-winning musician, producer, and founding member of Tony Tony Tony.

Speaker 2 He's worked with artists like Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, and Solange, and recently co-wrote the song I Lied to You for Ryan Koogler's new film Sinners.

Speaker 2 We'll be right back after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

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Speaker 2 raphael sadiq that's not your birth name how did you come up with that name uh my birth name is charlie ray

Speaker 4 charlie ray wiggins um

Speaker 4 i came up with the name because um i had a friend named michael ashberry who passed now from arizona he moved to oakland and we both worked at united parcels and on our when we would get off we work from 11 to 1 we get off work and we would go to a mall or something he would tell girls his name was raphael and my name was hostin i'm like why do you lie to people he was like i don't want to tell people my name i'm like you sell drugs or something what's going on and he's like no i just don't want to do that so i told him well i look more like a raphael and you look more like a hostin

Speaker 4 and so

Speaker 4 i got an audition for sheila

Speaker 4 and um her sister zina was

Speaker 4 signing everybody up and Zina didn't look at me when she asked me my name. She goes, Name, please.
And I thought it was kind of rude. So I just said, Rafael.

Speaker 4 And I got the gig, and I never changed the name.

Speaker 2 Sadiq.

Speaker 4 Sadiq, I just found Rafael Sadiq in this

Speaker 4 black bookstore, in this

Speaker 4 Arabic book, book. And I just looked up names and I saw Sadiq.
It means man of his word.

Speaker 3 I like the word.

Speaker 4 I love how Tupac's names are sound in film, like Tupac, Shokur.

Speaker 4 And I was like, yeah, I like Rafael.

Speaker 2 Sadiq.

Speaker 4 like yeah got a ring to it and

Speaker 4 I used it I went to the courthouse wore it in bow talked to my dad first he said he was fine with it I changed it

Speaker 4 and that summer I went to New York and the Wu-Tang clan

Speaker 4 mr. You got

Speaker 4 it saying Wu-Tang had a little rhyme in his record like it says I want a super freak physique like Rafael Sadiq, right?

Speaker 4 So that was like maybe four months after I changed it. So I was like, oh, it worked as an artist, as a front person.
And I ended up using it. And

Speaker 4 that's how I got the name.

Speaker 2 For the youngins who don't know, how did the name Tony, Tony, Tony come about?

Speaker 4 How the name Tony Tony Tony came about was we, my brother used to have this really

Speaker 4 wavy hair, Dwayne.

Speaker 4 You know, we were watching the movie Untouchables. Andy Garcia, his name was Tony.
And so he had that sort of hair, too.

Speaker 4 And so we took Andy Garcia's Tony name, and my brother said, Man, my hair looks so good. On the first day of school, my teacher would call me Tony, Tony, Tony.

Speaker 4 And we played at this wedding

Speaker 4 reception. We didn't have a record out.
The guy said, what's the name of the group? Where we were standing there. And I think my brother said, Tony, Tony, Tony, like joking.

Speaker 4 And when they said, ladies and gentlemen, ooh, ooh, wow, that's.

Speaker 4 But if you're Italian, you know, when we tell people that's Italian, they go like, Yeah, Tony, Tony, Tony. Yes, so that's how we got the name.

Speaker 4 And it ended up, you know, haunting us because people like friends that you knew from back in the day, when they see you, they forget your name and they call you Tony. Right.

Speaker 4 I think I came home one day after some tour. My mother was like, Hey, Tony.

Speaker 2 Nah, not mama.

Speaker 3 My mom called me Tony before back in the day.

Speaker 4 I was like, Wow, damn, you too.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right, Raphael. You brought a friend with you.
I did.

Speaker 4 This is my

Speaker 4 limited edition Fender Telecaster.

Speaker 4 Fender was so nice to

Speaker 4 let me design my own guitar. It's based around my Instant Vintage album cover.
So the little outfit I wore,

Speaker 4 this is sort of the print.

Speaker 2 Oh, the print is there. That Paisley light.
Like, yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, you say it's so nice that they allowed you to do it, but it's an honor.

Speaker 3 It's a limited series.

Speaker 4 No, it's definitely an honor, but I'm a bass player first. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, so, most of my friends who play guitar, you know, if we joke around, like, how in the hell you get a guitar?

Speaker 4 And I'm like, you definitely deserve it more than me. But

Speaker 4 I like it because it's

Speaker 4 as a bass player, I need like this body to be against me.

Speaker 4 And this feels good against my body. And

Speaker 4 it has that.

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 2 What is that when you say it has that what is that it has that

Speaker 4 It has that bite to it you it just bites and so when you're writing on it, it just gives me that

Speaker 4 It gives me that information to just keep, you know, I'm going forward. And I know the bass is coming next.
Yeah. But I love this stripe on the neck.

Speaker 4 And, like, when I was a kid, when I would see a guitar with this on the back of it, which was Fender.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Fender is Fender.

Speaker 2 That's a signature of Fender.

Speaker 4 That's a signature of Fender.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Tell me about the design process,

Speaker 2 how you came to design it, make these choices that you make. Yeah.
And describe what it looks like because we've got cameras, but there are also people who are going to be just hearing it.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 4 I just really took the artwork from Insta Vintage and I wanted that color and I wanted this pig. It's called a pig guard.

Speaker 3 This is where you

Speaker 4 it's um

Speaker 4 It's like this pretty pig guard. I wanted that.
I wanted this black stripe around the trims. I wanted this to feel like a car like an old school car in Oakland.

Speaker 4 Like, you know, we have like candy, a candy colored Mustang, 67 Mustang or Cougar or Driving Down Telegraph. Driving Down Telegraph, but I wanted the headstock to be black and gold.
And

Speaker 4 I think that I just really wanted to

Speaker 4 make sure that it has this really like

Speaker 4 Tony Maiden sound with this is like Rufus and Shaka Khan, you know, like

Speaker 2 what's that?

Speaker 4 It had I wanted that bite

Speaker 4 and Tony Maiden is like

Speaker 4 a hero of mine who plays guitar, who play all those records on Rufus and Shaka Khan. And I think he was my main inspiration behind the sound of the guitar.

Speaker 2 You know, there's like an energy shift from you when you pick up that guitar.

Speaker 4 Yeah, of course, yeah. I'm at home and I pick up the guitar, any instrument.

Speaker 4 This is when you're like, you know, a kid and you find something that you love and,

Speaker 4 you know, you, you love, I mean, musicians don't want to say it, but you love this more and you love your girl.

Speaker 4 You have to reel it in after a while. You're like, okay, an instrument is second, and

Speaker 4 the girl is first, but you know.

Speaker 2 My guest is Raphael Sadiq, Grammy-winning musician, producer, and founding member of Tony Tony Tony. We'll be back after a break.
This is Fresh Air.

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Speaker 2 Sly Stone,

Speaker 2 I want to talk to you a little bit about you.

Speaker 2 Legendary musician just passed away, was a big influence on you.

Speaker 2 Is it true that Sly's father was

Speaker 2 your pastor?

Speaker 4 No, he wasn't. He wasn't my pastor, but we were in the same church district.
It was called Kojik Church of God in Christ. And his dad was a part of that network.

Speaker 4 And he visited the church that I went to.

Speaker 4 And he

Speaker 4 preached at this church. And I think I was playing drums, and Timothy Riley was on organ.
And Slide's dad was in the pulpit preaching. And we're having this conversation while he's preaching.

Speaker 4 Like, that's Slide's dad. That's Slide's dad, Sylvester.

Speaker 2 That's the OG Sylvester.

Speaker 4 That's the OG, Sylvester. And

Speaker 4 he just stopped preaching and looked over at us and just said,

Speaker 4 if you ever get out there in the world, you know, be careful.

Speaker 4 Just be careful.

Speaker 2 That was his advice to you. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean, right on the microphone, in front of the church.

Speaker 2 How did you interpret what he was saying to me?

Speaker 4 I knew exactly what he was talking about. He was saying, you know,

Speaker 4 it's just, it's a lot out there, but be careful. It's drugs out there.

Speaker 4 a lot of temptation, a lot of things that can get you into a place where you don't want to be. And then his father was saying,

Speaker 4 don't be like Sly

Speaker 4 in a preacher type of way. But every preacher was like that, you know.

Speaker 4 But Sly is the,

Speaker 4 I don't even want to say goat. That's, that don't even,

Speaker 4 that doesn't even

Speaker 4 do him justice. He was definitely

Speaker 4 an inspiration for everybody.

Speaker 4 He was like Steph Curry. He changed the game of music completely.
And I know that because I talked to the late grade Maurice White, and we hung out a lot.

Speaker 4 And I said, So, man, who were you trying to what was your inspiration? And he said, Man, you know what? I was really just trying to be like

Speaker 4 from the, you know, the boys up your way.

Speaker 3 I'm like, cool, sly.

Speaker 4 Then I was listening. When I listened to Earth and Fire, I could hear it, how his inflections on his word, some of the words he used and how he sings.

Speaker 4 And then I start thinking everybody was really trying to be like Sly. He's an amazing songwriter.
He's an amazing piano player, organ player, and

Speaker 4 he was smart, brilliant, intelligent. You know, he

Speaker 4 was an intellectual guy.

Speaker 4 He understood theory, even though he just got the God-given gift.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it like permeates just like his influence, it seems like.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's

Speaker 4 man, when you go listen to like in time and have fun in the summertime. And

Speaker 4 I mean, anything that he did,

Speaker 4 I don't even think he needed

Speaker 4 a band most of the time. I would have loved to hear him just sing and play.

Speaker 4 That voice is like,

Speaker 4 yeah, I feel like he sounded a lot like Ray Charles.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I feel like he was inspired by Ray Charles a lot.

Speaker 2 Stone Rolling, that song of yours, was that a tribute to him?

Speaker 4 Is that no, that's a trip to a

Speaker 4 more like Memphis, Memphis, Memphis.

Speaker 3 Memphis Soul or Memphis. Memphis Soul.

Speaker 4 Like,

Speaker 3 definitely,

Speaker 4 yeah, that's the Stacks records. Otis Redding, Al Green.

Speaker 4 Those boys,

Speaker 4 nobody did it like them. You know, the first lyric, you know, Fat Lady Shaking, Backbone Breaking.

Speaker 4 You know, that's a blues line. But that record, there were songs I did that sound like

Speaker 4 Honey Yard Dash was like more of a slide thing

Speaker 4 or heart attack.

Speaker 3 You're giving me a heart attack.

Speaker 3 Don't you

Speaker 4 that was definitely

Speaker 4 That was definitely a slide thing, 100%.

Speaker 2 Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, Rafael Sadiq, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Rafael Sadiq is a Grammy Award-winning musician and producer. His one-man show, No Bandwidth, One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits, will continue touring the country this fall.

Speaker 2 Tomorrow on Fresh Air, Air, author and poet Layla Motley. She earned critical acclaim a few years ago at just 19 for her New York Times best-selling debut novel, Night Crawling.

Speaker 2 Now she's back with a new novel that follows three young women as they navigate what it means to be a mother today when reproductive rights are being rolled back across the country.

Speaker 2 I hope you can join us.

Speaker 2 To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air.

Speaker 2 Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lorne Crinzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Theya Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman.

Speaker 2 Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper.
Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show.
With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

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