He Ain’t Heavy…
Raphael Saadiq Feature Interview
“Shall we do one more?” Raphael Saadiq asks in a hushed tone off-mic, talking to the only other player sharing the small stage with him. In an intimate setting such as this is - the private Annabel’s nightclub in London’s Berkeley Square, a venue hired exclusively by Sony/Columbia Records to showcase Saadiq’s long-awaited new album Jimmy Lee - the entranced, invite-only audience is close enough to hear every whisper.
As side-man Charlie Bereal begins to strum the sombre chords to The World Is Drunk, an unplanned encore to a three song set that began with the first two singles, Something Keeps Calling & Glory To The Veins, and ended with the lively So Ready, the energy in the room shifts. With his own guitar resting on his lap, Saadiq cradles the mic to focus purely on delivering the words.
“He’s always in three places, spaces undefined/Heart is always racing, for something he will never find...” Raphael sings with verve, as the crowd zooms in even closer on their smart phones.
The debut solo album Instant Vintage may have already informed the public of the tragedies Saadiq had suffered in life, but it’s on his fifth studio album Jimmy Lee - a record named after and inspired by an older brother who was a heroin addict - that the artist directly addresses the pain that saw him and his family lose three brothers and a sister.
“It’s actually been very therapeutic for me,” says Saadiq around eight hours earlier, across town at the Curtain Hotel in Shoreditch. He’s sitting on a leather, deep buttoned Chesterfield chair in a lounge with pleated drapes and no daylight [or distractions], wearing a denim jacket with a blue paisley scarf, shades and a tall black Billy Jack hat.]
“I had never dealt with it,” he continues in an accent that, revealing his Oakland roots, intones the relaxed sound of Goldie from the 70s west-coast blaxploitation flick The Mack. “I never really had to; I just dealt with the music. I think I’ve put everything into my career, making people feel me through the music. When you hear a How Does It Feel by D’Angelo [co-produced & written by Saadiq] and you hear the drums - that tit, tit, tit intro - that’s just that thing inside of you.”
Recognized in the earlier part of his career as front man and bass virtuoso for R&B band Tony Toni Toné, who were lauded for their upbeat grooves.
“Who can forget Feels Good, It Never Rains (In Southern California) & Anniversary?” Asked the showcase compere, eliciting a cheer from the crowd whilst recalling the classic hits Raphael wrote but provided no hint to the heartache behind the scenes.
“It’s like dancing,” Raphael explains. “When you’re a dancer with problems your expression comes out in your moves. All of the trauma that I had in my life, it was all a dance. I didn’t remain sad about it, I danced to it.”
The most 'feel-good' cut on Jimmy Lee is the aforementioned So Ready, which sounds like an early ‘80s Stevie track if Prince had played bass on it.
“So Ready is about the guy with an addiction who promises his spouse that he’s gonna be clean,” Saadiq explains. “He always lets her down, but she still loves and protects him. I never looked at my brother Jimmy in a negative way like that. He was an addict, but we never saw him do anything and nobody ever said a bad word about him. We just saw him without a job.”
Jimmy Lee album cover
The new album was originally named after the haunting Glory To The Veins, Raphael only decided to revert back to the working-title Jimmy Lee at the last minute - giving a first listen to his nephew (and Jimmy’s son) J.J.
“It was in the last six months that I felt the record was ready,” says Saadiq. “I would put the tracks on my iTunes library, play them in the car and then go back to the studio and play it real loud. Its only if I can see myself playing it live that it then makes the record.”
To put the finishing touch on Something Keeps Calling, Raphael brought in featured artist Rob Bacon, aka Fonkstarr.
“Raphael called and said he was finishing the new album,” says Bacon. “He didn’t mention the direction or vibe of the song; he just said, ‘You’ll get it’.”
Saadiq had already laid down the track - drums, bass, keys & rhythm guitars - requesting from Bacon lead guitar solos in 16 bars and 8 bars (the latter for a single edit).
“I immediately heard the heavy Isley Brothers vibe,” recalls Bacon. “So, around the third night after first hearing the song, inspiration hit and I went into the studio and recorded the full 16 bar solo just thinking about Ernie Isley and how much I had missed the feeling that this song had stirred in my soul.”
Saadiq was so pleased with the result that he gave Bacon a featured credit, something that came as a surprise to his friend.
“That song is all Ray; all I did was put the cherry on the top” insists Bacon.
Whilst Saadiq enlisted some assistance on production from Brook D’Leau [of J. Davey] and reunited with both Ali Shaheed Muhammed, former bandmate in noughties supergroup Lucy Pearl, and Kelvin WU10 Wooten, the album is predominantly self-produced, performed & written. Established collaborator Taura Stinson, with whom Raphael co-wrote the Oscar nominated Mighty River [along with Mary J Blige] also contributed to the album opener Sinners Prayer.
“I call Taura ‘The Thesaurus’,” says Saadiq. “She can write a story and she can write a song, and after she wrote (the lyrics) to Sinners Prayer I called heR up and was like ‘You some type of witch or something?’ Because everything she wrote in that song came true and happened to me two years later.”
“There has been a lot of betrayal and much of this record came from that frustration.”
It’s been eight years since Saadiq’s last Columbia album Stone Rollin’, a period that has seen a switch in his management & personnel, with the previous team conspiring to make Raphael default on the properties he owns, until they were found out that is.
“When you’re out here trying to create, to make a living and there’s terrible people, dirty accountants and managers around you, who think they really slick … but when they get caught, they want to play all apologetic … well I didn’t like that. I don’t like that quote, ‘It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.’. Nah it shouldn’t be that way - you should still get something else. Thank god for Kendrick Lamar’s Alright. That was my theme song. That helped me get through something. I don’t really mess with nobody in that way, I’m not a violent person y’know? But I almost got to that point, like I was gonna have my first mug shot.”
Kendrick Lamar appears on the album closer Rearview, a song preceded by the epic gospeldelic anthem Rikers Island. The chorus is sung by a choir made in the studio, Saadiq multi-tracking his own voice, doing all of the harmonies himself.
“Jimmy spent a lot of time in prison,” he says; leaning forward. “I’d visit him at San Quentin and at State Prison and when I’d go outside to the left would be all these nice BMW’s - lawyers cars - and to the right all these tore up raggedy cars of the prisoners’ families. It just shows how the system is making money off those less fortunate. There was a lot of black people there as well, so I just started singing “There’s too many niggas in Rikers Island…” It felt big, so I sang it a hundred times over to create that sound - like the end before the end.”
Lyrically the statement that is perhaps the true heart & soul of the album is The World Is Drunk. It’s personal enough for him to recite an entire verse verbatim during the interview. He then says:
“It’s about the characters you heard me talk about, it’s about my brother and about family in that what you see (happening) around your house also matches up with the outside world.”
Later, as he performs The World Is Drunk at Annabel’s, the lavish surroundings fade into the background. Whilst everybody - the media scribes, the DJ’s, industry tastemakers, record execs and bar staff - all listen intently, suddenly the VIP Sony wristband, the talk of a forthcoming Tonyies album (confirmed by Raphael), his previous work with the likes of D’Angelo, Solange & Mick Jagger - all of that stuff – no longer seems to matter.
“All he ever does is stay drunk,” he sings full of emotion and soul, conveying the pain and betrayal that he has experienced. “This world is drunk, and the people are mad…”
In awe, a momentary pause proceeds a standing ovation. As Raphael makes his way off the stage, heading straight towards the dressing room, his Billy Jack hat can be seen slowly wading through the punters who are gathering by the counter. Well, it is a free bar after all.
“Jimmy Lee” by Raphael Saadiq
is out now on Columbia Records
Words by Dan Dodds | Art by Paul Pate
Originally published in Echoes Magazine, Sept 2019 & edited by Chris Wells.
