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Raphael Saadiq (; born Charles Ray Wiggins; May 14, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He rose to prominence as a vocalist and bassist for the R&B band Tony! Toni! Toné!, which he formed with his brother D'Wayne and cousin Timothy Christian Riley in 1986. Originally, the band went by the name "Tony, Toni, Toné" as a joke, until they realized it "had a nice ring to it". Along with his groupwork and solo career, he has produced and written songs for other R&B artists, including Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, Jill Scott, Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Total, Earth, Wind & Fire, Joss Stone, TLC, En Vogue, Kelis, Mary J. Blige, Ledisi, Whitney Houston, Solange Knowles and John Legend.
After touring with Prince, Sheila E. and Sheena Easton as a bassist in the mid-1980s, Saadiq co-founded Tony! Toni! Tone!. He went on to release four albums— Who! (1988), The Revival (1990), Sons of Soul (1993), and House of Music (1996)—with the band before their indefinite hiatus. Prior to House of Music, Saadiq released his 1995 debut solo single, "Ask of You", for the soundtrack to the John Singleton film Higher Learning, and he formed the music production unit the Ummah (with D'Angelo, Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and J Dilla). "Ask of You" peaked within the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and led him to briefly sign with the now-defunct Universal Records as a solo act. In 1999, he formed the supergroup Lucy Pearl with singer Dawn Robinson, as well as Ummah cohort Ali Shaheed Muhammad; the group's self-titled debut album (2000) was supported by the Hot 100-top 40 single "Dance Tonight", and served as their only project before disbanding in 2001.
Saadiq has since released five solo albums, including the critically acclaimed Instant Vintage (2002), Ray Ray (2004), as well as the retro-styled The Way I See It (2008) and Stone Rollin' (2011). The contemporary-sounding Jimmy Lee was released in 2019, and earned Saadiq further acclaim.
Music critic Robert Christgau has called Saadiq the "preeminent R&B artist of the '90s". Saadiq has won three for his songwriting work out of 22 nominations, as well as an Academy Awards nomination, two Golden Globe Award nominations and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Outside of music, Saadiq also co-founded the independent video game developer IllFonic in 2007, which has developed (2017), (2020) and (2022), among other titles.
He has been playing the bass guitar since the age of six, and first began singing at age nine in a local gospel group. At the age of 12, he joined a group called "The Gospel Humminbirds". In 1984, shortly before his 18th birthday, Saadiq heard about tryouts in San Francisco for Sheila E.'s backing band on Prince's Parade Tour. At the audition, he chose the name "Raphael", and had difficulty remembering to respond to the name when he heard that he got the part to play bass in the band. He says of the experience, "Next thing I was in Tokyo, in a stadium, singin' Erotic City. We were in huge venues with the biggest sound systems in the world; all these roadies throwin' me basses, and a bunch of models hangin' round Prince to party. For almost two years. That was my university."
In 1995, Saadiq had his biggest solo hit to date, when "Ask of You", featured on the Higher Learning Soundtrack peaked at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the R&B chart. In 1995, Saadiq produced and performed on Otis & Shug's debut album, We Can Do Whatever.
Tony! Toni! Toné! would become major R&B superstars throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. However, after the 1996 album entitled House of Music failed to duplicate the group's previous success, Tony! Toni! Toné! went their separate ways in 1997.
Also in 1999, he collaborated with rapper Q-Tip on the single "Get Involved", from the animated television series The PJs. It samples The Intruders' 1973 song "I'll Always Love My Mama" and charted at number 21 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks.
His 2000 song collaboration "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" won D'Angelo a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; it was also nominated for Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. The song was ranked #4 on Rolling Stone's "End of Year Critics & Readers Poll" of the top singles of 2000. D'Angelo's album Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 2001 Grammy Awards.
In 2002, Saadiq founded his own record label, Pookie Entertainment. Among the artists on the label are Joi and Truth Hurts. In 2002, he released his first solo album Instant Vintage, which earned him three Grammy Award nominations in addition to another two Grammy nominations for his writing work on “Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)” the following year. He released a two-disc live album All the Hits at the House of Blues in 2003, and his second studio album Ray Ray in 2004, both on Pookie Entertainment.
Saadiq's third solo album, The Way I See It, released on Columbia Records on September 16, 2008, available in a collector's edition box set of 7" 45 rpm singles as well as on traditional CD, was critically well-received, made several critics' 2008 best albums lists, and garnered three Grammy nominations including Best R&B Performance by a Duo Or Group With Vocals (for "Never Give You Up", featuring Stevie Wonder & CJ Hilton); Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance (for "Love That Girl") and Best R&B Album for The Way I See It. Music from The Way I See It was featured in the following motion pictures: Madea Goes To Jail, Bride Wars, Cadillac Records, Secret Life of Bees, In Fighting (Rogue), and It's Complicated.
Touring with a nine-piece band, Saadiq hit the 2009 summer music festival circuit with performances at Bonnaroo, Hollywood Bowl, Outside Lands, Pori Jazz, Stockholm Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz, Essence Music Festival, Summer Spirit Festival, and Nice Jazz Festival, Bumbershoot Music Festival and Austin City Limits. Saadiq has been touring Europe extensively, and held a five-night residency at the House of Blues in Tokyo, Japan, in June 2009. In 2008, Saadiq formed a new label called Velma Records, a place where he promises "people can express themselves like I did with The Way I See It... where they can dream something up and just go with it".
He produced songs for LeToya Luckett's forthcoming second album Lady Love, released August 2009. In 2009, Saadiq produced "Please Stay" and "Love Never Changes" for Ledisi's August 2009 release "Turn Me Loose". Saadiq also was the executive producer for an emerging group called Tha Boogie. Tha Boogie's first EP was released on iTunes and is titled Love Tha Boogie, Vol. 1 (Steal This Sh*t).
In 2009, Saadiq teamed up Bentley Kyle Evans, Jeff Franklin, Martin Lawrence, and Trenten Gumbs to create a new sitcom called Love That Girl! starring Tatyana Ali. Raphael is an executive producer and composer for Love That Girl! The show airs on TV One and debuted on January 19, 2010. That same year, Saadiq performed The Spinners hit "It's A Shame" in a legendary Levi's commercial and sang as part of the chorus in the 2010 remake of "We Are the World" for Haiti.
Saadiq's 2011 album Stone Rollin' was released to great critical acclaim. "He's always had a boyish enthusiasm for performing, and a flexible, naturally joyous voice that suggests a young Stevie Wonder," wrote Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "but with his latest album, Saadiq finds a new gear. The album and his current tour demonstrate that there's a big difference between retro and classic, and the artist consistently finds himself on the right side of that divide." Kot ranked the album number seven in his year-end list, in which he dubbed it Saadiq's "finest achievement" and stated, "He's always written songs steeped in soul and R&B, but now he gives them a progressive edge with roaming bass lines and haunted keyboard textures. He's no longer a retro stylist – he's writing new classics." Critic Jim Derogatis called it "a stone cold gas of a party disc."
In the fall of 2011, he performed on the fourth results show of Dancing with the Stars season 13. In December 2011, he performed a cover compilation of several Neil Diamond songs at the Kennedy Center Honors award ceremony.
In 2012 he signed a deal with Toyota to do a TV commercial for the Toyota Prius. In 2013 Raphael partnered with Bay Area/ Atlanta Production company EL Seven Entertainment/ Republic Records and then-new R&B singer Adrian Marcel and released his first promotional mixtape Raphael Saadiq Presents Adrian Marcel 7 Days of Weak.
Saadiq is a featured bass guitar player on Elton John's 2013 album, The Diving Board.
In 2016 he executive produced Solange Knowles' album, A Seat at the Table, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in the United States. He also guest starred in Luke Cage, where he performs his songs "Good Man" and "Angel" at Harlem's Paradise.
In 2017 he appeared in the award-winning documentary film The American Epic Sessions, directed by Bernard MacMahon, where he recorded the Memphis Jug Band's 1928 song "Stealin' Stealin'". live on the restored first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. Of recording on the system he said, "it's amazing to just look at how it's built, you know just look at the machine itself. It just has this like magical sound the way that it's built. It's true. It's just the truest sound you could ever get".
In 2017, Saadiq collaborated with Mary J. Blige as a songwriter for the movie Mudbound (2017), for which they both received Academy Awards nominations for Best Original Song.
In 2018, he produced the John Legend holiday themed album, A Legendary Christmas.
On August 23, 2019, Saadiq released his fifth album Jimmy Lee, to critical acclaim.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he released a song on his website called "Rony! Roni! Roné!", as a nod to his group "Tony! Toni! Toné!".
In 2022, Saadiq collaborated on multiple songs from Brent Faiyaz's album Wasteland, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart. Saadiq also collaborated with Beyoncé on her seventh and eighth studio albums Renaissance, for which he received two Grammy award nominations, and 2024's Cowboy Carter, for which he was nominated for four Grammys, winning Album of the Year as a songwriter.
| + !Title !Year !Artist !Album | |||
| "Midnight" | 1993 | A Tribe Called Quest | Midnight Marauders |
| "Stressed Out (Remix)" | 1996 | ATCQ, Faith Evans | |
| "What They Do" | The Roots | Illadelph Halflife | |
| "Jus Mee & U" | 1997 | Luniz | Lunitik Muzik |
| "Something Bout Yo Bidness" | 1999 | Snoop Dogg | No Limit Top Dogg |
| "Well" | 2000 | DJ Quik | Balance & Options |
| "Just a Man" | 2001 | Baby Boy soundtrack | |
| 2002 | Devin the Dude | Just Tryin' ta Live | |
| "Leave This Morning" | 2003 | Nappy Roots | Wooden Leather |
| "Glow" | Kelis | Tasty | |
| "Take Me" | 2004 | Teedra Moses | Complex Simplicity |
| "Harvest for the World" | Kelvin Wooton | Isley Brothers: Taken to the Next Phase | |
| "Ask of You" | 2005 | Mashonda | January Joy |
| "I Found My Everything" | Mary J. Blige | The Breakthrough | |
| "Walk These Streets" | Warren G | In the Mid-Nite Hour | |
| "Show Me the Way" | Earth, Wind and Fire | Illumination | |
| "Coming Home" | Bizarre | Hannicap Circus | |
| "We Get Down" | 2006 | Hi-Tek, Mos Def, Bootsy Collins | |
| "Waste of Time" | 2008 | Snoop Dogg | Ego Trippin' |
| "Show You the World" | The Grouch | Show You the World | |
| "We Fight/We Love" | Q-Tip | The Renaissance | |
| "What Dudes Do" | 2009 | Chali 2na | Fish Outta Water |
| "Without You" | Dwele | Dwele | |
| "All the Money in the World" | 2010 | Rick Ross | Teflon Don |
| "Heart Attack" | 2011 | Abduction (OST) | |
| "Balmain Jeans" | 2014 | Kid Cudi | |
| "Soul Food" | Big K.R.I.T. | Cadillactica | |
| "Gonna Miss You" | 2016 | Rapsody | Crown |
| "Hero" | Dame D.O.L.L.A. | The Letter O | |
| "Apple of My Eye" | 2017 | Rick Ross | Rather You Than Me |
| "Bullets in the Street and Blood" | Cody Chestnutt | My Love Divine Degree | |
| "Soul Sista Remix" | 2019 | Bilal | Queen & Slim (soundtrack) |
| "If It's Good" | 2020 | Insecure: Season 4 | |
| "The Sun" | KYLE, Bryson Tiller | See You When I Am Famous | |
| "Season Ticket Holder" | Rick Ross, D. Wade, Wale | ||
| "GOAT Spirit" | 2021 | Dame D.O.L.L.A. | Different on Levels the LORD Allowed |
| "No Wish" | 2023 | Black Milk, Phonte | Everybody Good? |
| "Crash" | 2025 | No ID, Saba, Kelly Rowland | From the Private Collection |
|- |2018 |Mighty River (with Mary J. Blige & Taura Stinson) |Best Original Song | |}
|- |2009 |Raphael Saadiq |BET Centric Award | |}
Golden Globe Awards
|- |2018 |Mighty River (with Mary J. Blige) |rowspan="2"|Best Original Song | |- |2021 |Tigress & Tweed (with Andra Day) | |}
Primetime Emmy Awards
|- |2021 |Lovecraft Country (with Laura Karpman) |rowspan="2"|Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series |
|}
|- | rowspan="2" | 1994 | rowspan="2" | "Anniversary" | Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals | |- | Best R&B Song | |- | rowspan="2" | 2001 | "Dance Tonight" | Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal | |- | "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" (performed by D'Angelo) | Best R&B Song | |- | rowspan="5" | 2003 | rowspan="2" | "Be Here" (with D'Angelo) | Best Urban/Alternative Performance | |- | rowspan="2" | Best R&B Song | |- | rowspan="2" | "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" (as songwriter) | |- | Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media | |- | Instant Vintage | Best R&B Album | |- | 2005 | "Show Me the Way" (with Earth, Wind & Fire) | Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals | |- | 2007 | "I Found My Everything" (with Mary J. Blige) | Best Traditional R&B Performance | |- | rowspan="3" | 2009 | "Never Give You Up" (feat. Stevie Wonder and CJ Hilton) | Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals | |- | The Way I See It | Best R&B Album | |- | "Love That Girl" | Best Traditional R&B Performance | |- | 2012 | "Good Man" | Best Traditional R&B Performance | |- | 2021 | Donda (as producer) | Album of the Year | |- | rowspan="2" | 2023 | Renaissance (as songwriter & producer) | Album of the Year | |- | "Cuff It" | Best R&B Song | |- | rowspan=4 |2025 | Cowboy Carter (as songwriter) | Album of the Year | |- | rowspan="3" |"Texas Hold 'Em" | Record of the Year | |- | Song of the Year | |- | Best Country Song | |- |}
Soul Train Music Awards
|- |2009 |Raphael Saadiq |Best Male R&B/Soul Artist | |- |2011 |Raphael Saadiq |Centric Award | |- |2016 |"Cranes In The Sky" |The Ashford & Simpson Songwriter's Award | |}
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