Raphael Saadiq

Sound · b. 1966 · Oakland, California, USA

Raphael Saadiq (/səˈdiːk/; 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. Initially, the band went by the name "Tony, Toni, Toné" as a joke, until they realised 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.

Full biography

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. Before House of Music, Saadiq released his 1995 debut solo single, "Ask of You", for the soundtrack to the John Singleton film Higher Learning. 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 and 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 Grammy Awards for his songwriting work out of 22 nominations, as well as an Academy Award 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 Friday the 13th: The Game (2017), Predator: Hunting Grounds (2020) and Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed (2022), among other titles.

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