It’s pretty safe to assume Raphael Saadiq knows a thing or two about reinvention. After all, it was the Saadiq-led trio of Tony! Toni! Toné! whose “If I Had No Loot” sampled Ice Cube saying, “And you can New Jack Swing on my nuts,” when other R&B acts were still doing their best Guy impression. The last 21 years have seen the man formerly known as Charlie Ray Wiggins undergo enough transformations to draw comparisons to a certain purple-clad soul singer from Minneapolis.

Saadiq’s chameleon mentality has taken him from talent shows in his native Oakland, to early accolades with his fellow Tonies and through a brief stint with Lucy Pearl, only to re-emerge again as a soloist. The only constant has been what appears to be a need to keep himself fresh through his interpretation of classic sounds.

On a day when true Soul aficionados mourned the untimely passing of Motown innovator Norman Whitfield, Saadiq spoke about bridging the gap between old and new on his latest effort, The Way I See It [click to read]. The album continues his efforts to push his genre forward, by taking a quantum leap back via the dusty catalogues of Motown, Stax and Philadelphia International Records. After all the changes, maybe it’s only fitting that things come full circle.

HipHopDX: On the Ray Ray album, you shot this blaxploitation styled cover art before you recorded any music. The Way I See It has a picture of your performance at Sweet's Ballroom. How important is it to you to have that visual as you're going into an album?
Raphael Saadiq: You know it just kind of happened like that a couple times. I tried to do the cover afterwards, but it didn’t work like that. I took that picture, and I tried to take more pictures of what I wanted to do. This one just fit. But it’s very important to me to get that whole feel before I get started.

DX: Your entire album was streamed on MySpace the day before it was officially released. Odyssey Records in New Orleans also did a ladies only listening session for the album back in July. What are your thoughts how this album was worked versus the traditional methods?
Raphael Saadiq: It’s definitely a different climb, and things are done a lot differently now. You’ve got to hustle harder, you know? It’s really tough times for everybody, but you’ve got to get out there in the trenches and really work your record.

DX: In line with that, you released Ray Ray through your Pookie Entertainment label. What did you take away from that experience?
Raphael Saadiq: It kind of got me ready for the way the industry is right now. Being on a major is almost like being independent now. [Laughs] They’ve gotta grind the same way I did independently. So I was ready because of the independent experience I had.

DX: On this album you worked with Paul Riser and Jack Ashford, who played a huge part in the Motown sound. Motown took a lot of heat for what some people thought was watering down black music to make it more palatable to the mainstream.
Raphael Saadiq: I thought about that, but people don’t think that now. [Laughs] Not after watching that Temptations movie. They were more hood than anybody.

DX: As someone who is critically acclaimed but criminally slept-on in terms of sales, did making your sound more accessible play into choosing to cover material from that era?
Raphael Saadiq: Nah, man. I don’t think about no awards. I mean, if I get them, I get them. I feel like when I make the music that I really love, I’ve already won the award. To make that music and go back and listen to it is rewarding. All my awards aren’t really here with me anyway. I ain’t trying to break my awards out in front of people or anything like that. If it happens like that, I’m cool with it. I’m not gonna force the issue.

DX: Understood. But, suppose you remove the Grammy’s and all that stuff. I know this is a taboo word, but what about crossing-over to a broader fan base?
Raphael Saadiq: Right, right, right. I definitely want more people to hear it, but I want people to get that experience. I want them to be able to feel it like my core audience and my band I put together. It’s really about the experience of playing places and just making history in the way we know it’s made. History is made by people meeting and coming together for a cohesive project where everybody finds their lane inside of it. There’s a whole lot more to it. I came up at a time when it was about the music, the show and other things than just putting out a record.

DX: During the time you came up in, there were a lot of social issues that influenced the music. How would you compare those to some of the things that inspire today’s music?
Raphael Saadiq: I think Hip Hop is more in the vein of what was going on in the '60s and '70s. [In Hip Hop] people kind of get together and they know they’re coming out of—not necessarily battling anymore—but coming out to one event to make the best out of it. I don’t think R&B is like that anymore. It’s more like wanting to make a song or a video. I think Hip Hop cats are more about trying to get their paper at shows. They know they have to make records that are good enough to put out and perform in front of people. With R&B I don’t see that. They’re more concerned with what the video will look like, as opposed to how the song is going to make you feel. Continued on page 2 »