MBW’s World’s Greatest Producers series sees us interview – and celebrate – some of the outstanding talents working in studios across the decades. This time, we meet Raphael Saadiq, one of the most successful producers of the modern age who doesn’t really see himself as a producer – although his work with, amongst others, Beyoncé, Mary J Blige and Whitney Houston suggests otherwise. World’s Greatest Producers is supported by Kollective Neighbouring Rights, the neighbouring rights agent that empowers and equips clients with knowledge to fully maximise their earnings.
Sure, he may have steered highly acclaimed projects by genuine legends such as Mary J Blige, Solange, John Legend, Whitney Houston, the Bee Gees and D’Angelo. And he may be credited on recent culture-shifting albums by Beyoncé (Renaissance, Cowboy Carter) and Brent Faiyaz (Wasteland). He may even be regarded as one of the greatest sonic architects of the last 40 years.
But, to Saadiq himself, he’s just a dude in a band.
“I got the opportunity to use the title ‘producer’, but I don’t use it too much,” he grins. “I just say I’m a member of the band. If we work together, I just join the band and it takes a lot of pressure off me. I used to work with people that would wear T-shirts that say ‘Producer’, but I’ve never really seen myself like that. I just try to do what I like and hopefully we all like the same thing.”
Well, this is awkward, because this series is called World’s Greatest Producers. “For that,” he deadpans, “I might have to get on board with it…”
And, of course, once upon a time Saadiq really was just one of the boys in the band. He grew up in Oakland, California, where – as the youngest of 14 siblings – he was often left to his own devices. Having schooled himself on his parents’ record collection, he would walk around his neighbourhood, which just happened to be home to countless amazing musicians, hear a great drummer or bass player, knock on the door and ask to join in.
In the same spirit, aged just 18, he auditioned for Sheila E’s backing band and found himself travelling the world playing bass for two years as part of Prince’s Parade tour.
“I got a chance to hang out and talk to him,” he marvels. “I watched to see what big management and a huge production looks like. It was like seeing Jimi Hendrix at the height of his career…”
On returning, he formed the R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! with his brother D’Wayne Wiggins and cousin Timothy Christian Riley and embraced the role of frontman as the band became huge R&B stars in the US during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
After the band split (“[The split] didn’t make any sense – but sometimes being in the music industry doesn’t make any sense, so I just rolled with it…”), he formed the supergroup Lucy Pearl with Dawn Robinson from En Vogue and Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest before launching a solo career.
But he was already transitioning to a behind the scenes role and quickly became the go-to R&B/hip-hop/soul producer of the 2000s and 2010s, also working on Joss Stone’s Introducing… Joss Stone album, playing with Mick Jagger (“He has so much energy and he’s so funky!”) and Elton John (“He just puts those lyrics up there and starts writing those songs!”), moving into film and TV music, co-founding the Illfonic video games company and becoming a key influence on Amy Winehouse (“We were due to play a show together somewhere, but she passed away a couple of weeks before – such a terrible loss”).
He won Grammys with Erykah Badu for Love Of My Life (An Ode To Hip-Hop) and with Beyoncé for Cuff It and was nominated for an Oscar in 2018 for Mighty River, co-written with Mary J Blige and Taura Stinson for the movie Mudbound (he took his mother to the ceremony and her phone went off in the middle of the big night).
And now he finds himself red hot again, with Cowboy Carter – for which he co-wrote/co-produced four songs, including the global smash Texas Hold ‘Em – seeing him nominated for a string of country music awards. At the Grammys, Cowboy Carter is up for both Album Of The Year and Best Country Album, while Bey songs he worked on are nominated for Record Of The Year (Texas Hold ‘Em), Best Pop Solo Performance (Bodyguard) and Best Country Solo Performance (16 Carriages).
Right now, however, it’s time for him to catch up with MBW on a bright, sunny day in Portland and talk us through ‘90s stardom, how to reinvent yourself and the fine art of being a non-producer…
YOU WORKED WITH BEYONCÉ ON RENAISSANCE. WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU HEARD SHE WANTED TO MAKE A COUNTRY ALBUM?
I wasn’t surprised. The way she promoted the record, talking about where country music came from, I felt she would be one of the leaders to come out and sing country music. Her family is a southern family. Other country singers in Nashville have been doing it, but they haven’t had that light shining on them, so she probably was like, ‘OK, let’s go, I’m down for it’.
[Being involved with the project] is pretty wild. It’s pretty full-on to work for somebody that has a drive and is at the top of their game, just to be a part of a team that really has good ideas.
When you get a chance to work with somebody like Beyoncé, she has a dream to do what she wants to do and I go back to being that kid in the room who sees if he can dream up something to help somebody else.
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE NOMINATED FOR AWARDS IN THE COUNTRY MUSIC SPACE?
Well, I haven’t received too many awards for anything, so… I’m not really that big on awards anyway; the reward is when you listen to the music back through the speakers. I already got the awards – the proof is still on the radio!
I might hear the same song 500 or 600 times before an audience gets a chance to listen to it and, to me, that’s the reward. I’m not just saying that to be like, ‘I don’t really care about awards’, it just never really dawned on me that it was a big deal to win awards. I feel most achievement when I learn to play an instrument, to entertain myself first and if the people in front of me dig it, then that’s a plus.
YOU’VE NOW HAD HITS IN FIVE DIFFERENT DECADES. DID YOU EVER IMAGINE YOUR CAREER WOULD HAVE SUCH LONGEVITY?
[Laughs] No, because when I first started out, I don’t think I even knew how to count what a decade was! I never looked at it like that. I did notice that almost every year I had something out that did very well but…
People always say, ‘You’re the most slept-on producer/musician in all of the music business’, but I never felt like that. I just haven’t been very vocal about what I’ve done. I’m just very fortunate to have the talent to last through these decades, because it’s hard.
“I was like a sponge – I was coachable, I had pretty good ears, I could hear a lot and I paid attention to more talented people about why things work and why things don’t work.”
They have this thing called ‘one hit wonders’ – they make one album and you never hear about them again. But as an artist, I really wanted to be more of a utility guy who can work with other people, I never wanted to be the solo artist.
I was like a sponge – I was coachable, I had pretty good ears, I could hear a lot and I paid attention to more talented people about why things work and why things don’t work. That was my biggest attribute.
BUT TONY! TONI! TONÉ! WERE MASSIVE. WASN’T IT YOUR DREAM TO BE A BIG ARTIST?
I won’t say it was the dream to become a big artist, but it was the only thing available. I’d rather have been playing bass for a big group like the Stones at that time, but the artist thing came up.
It took off and, all of a sudden, I had to put the bass down and become a front guy, which was not one of the things I planned on doing. It’s a good thing I was studying the best, so I could go out there and act like a bunch of different people until I figured it out!
I may have looked like a natural, but that bass was like my shield. Now I’m a tenor soprano singing dude? It was different. That said, I put the hours in because I knew at 8pm there was going to be a show and people paying money to watch will be critiquing every second of what I did. I wasn’t anticipating any of it though, it all caught me by surprise.
HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE AS AN ARTIST BEEN USEFUL AS A PRODUCER?
Yeah. My records to me are like promos for my production. I never planned on my albums being big, giant albums – it was like a one-sheet for what I do. Like, if you like some of these, maybe we can sell one of these cars to you!
As a producer working on different artists, I could be artist-friendly, asking some of the right questions. I feel like, if they want to work with me, they must like something I’ve done.
So, without trying to be redundant and do some of the same things I did on somebody else, I would feel lucky to find artists that had their own identity so I could expand on what they’ve already done, and hopefully we can get together and do something different, take it to a new level.
DID YOU HAVE TO REINVENT YOURSELF WHEN YOU BECAME A PRODUCER?
Yeah, but it’s all about reinventing yourself. I welcome the challenge to reinvent myself as much as I can.
It’s one of the hardest things to do, but I’ve been pretty successful with changing gears a few times in this industry – so much so that sometimes people don’t even know who I am when I come out. One minute I have long dreads, the next I’m shaved down, one minute I’m this ‘60s guy – I like to play a lot of dress-up!
WHAT KIND OF A PRODUCER ARE YOU?
I like to be as hands-on as an artist wants or needs me to be. I’ll make suggestions and come up with ideas and melodies, but I really like working with artists who know what they want to do, and then I can add on to what they need.
Some people need someone to vocal coach them, but I don’t really like vocal coaching artists. They should know what they should be singing!
I look at it like a sport. If you want to play football, I can throw you the ball, but you should catch it. I don’t like to work with artists that drop the ball.
IS YOUR AUTHENTIC MUSICAL STYLE HARDER TO DO IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE?
No. I learned how to do it the authentic way as fast as people can push buttons, so it doesn’t really take that much time. People like pushing buttons because it’s faster and easier for them. But I can make better music than people pushing buttons, fast.
People who can’t play an instrument, or can’t come up with a certain line or a melody, depend on loops and take basslines from Ableton or Logic. I will never take a bassline from any digital domain in my life! That will never happen.
Drum loops I don’t mind, but even 99% of those, I’ll play it faster than I can find it, and I can find the best drummer who can play better than me. I’d just rather do what the authentic sound is; it breathes more, it has that sensibility. And, if everybody’s doing something, I want to be the one person that doesn’t do it.
[That musicality] is getting lost in the business, but it just makes other people stand out. It’s like driving a Tesla versus driving a Porsche that takes gas – I’d rather drive a Porsche, but there are a lot of Teslas out there…
WHAT ABOUT AI? ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT WHAT EFFECT THAT MIGHT HAVE ON SONGWRITERS AND PRODUCERS?
I’m not nervous about it. There are people doing some amazing things with AI. I’m not against it, but I don’t want to use it. I’d rather just figure it out the way I’ve been figuring it out.
I love the technology, it’s amazing. But I don’t think it’s going to write Let It Be. It’s not going to write Try A Little Tenderness. So, knowing that it’s not going to do that, I know I can’t get the best out of me if I’m using AI.
YOU’VE ALWAYS SEEMED TO BE INTERESTED IN THE WIDER INDUSTRY…
I’m sort of interested, because I’m still making music. There needs to be some fairness to streaming. I’m hopeful about the music industry but I still own a mailbox and I have a lot of music out. If I was making money that mailbox would be breaking down! That mailbox is silent a lot.
It will come around and get better, kids are smarter than my generation was. They’re going to have to fight the fight because right now it’s bad.
SO HOW DO YOU FIX IT?
I don’t think we can get together because musicians are not like that. You can’t get a whole bunch of musicians to say strike. Musicians won’t stick together to do anything.
How can you tell an artist not to make a record? It will never happen and the music industry knows.
“MUSIC IS the business people get into because they couldn’t make it in the real world.”
The music industry is a second-class business, it’s always been that compared to the film industry or the gaming industry. It’s the business people get into because they couldn’t make it in the real world.
They know we’re a bunch of misfits. Musicians really want to be on the stage singing, with girls screaming, driving fancy cars – if you already know that’s what we want, you can just play to our weakness and that’s what it is. They’ll probably always win.
ARE YOU HAPPY FLYING UNDER THE RADAR?
I can take care of my life and my family and I love it like that. I don’t mind taking that other route. When I get noticed it does feel good, but the most important part is the work. I enjoy the work more than I enjoy the light.
I’m going to keep working for as long as God says I can keep working. If people like what I’m doing, I’m going to keep working. I like working with good people, that’s what keeps me going.
If you want to be great, you study the greats. If you want to be a professional, you’ve got to study the professionals. If you want to be an amateur, look at the amateurs. I just never looked at the amateurs too much.
Kollective Neighbouring Rights is one of the largest and most efficient neighbouring rights agents in the world. KNR navigates a complex and detailed income stream whilst providing clients with unmatched transparency, monthly accounting and flexible statement solutions.Music Business Worldwide
