Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq (born Charlie Ray Wiggins) is best known as a producer (for the likes of D’Angelo, Joss Stone and the Roots) and as the leader of Tony! Toni! Tone!, a new jack swing and R&B band that held some serious urban contemporary club turf in the early ’90s. Since leaving that trio behind in 2000, Saadiq has released three solo studio albums, the finest of which is this year’s The Way I See It.
With the stuttering snare and the slippery guitar line that opens “Sure Hope You Mean It”, Saadiq names the place and the time: Detroit, 1962-63. It’s the sound of Hitsville USA, the feel of singles by Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder (who gets a harmonica solo on “Never Give You Up”), pure aural pleasure in times as nervous and hopeful as our own. Five of these tracks clock in under three minutes, and the longest is just over four. Each makes a concise statement of form and feeling; each cuts to the quick of the hook. If the Jay Z cameo on “Oh Girl” seems to have been grafted on from another, more calculated world, the rest of the album finds an elastic, joyous spirit in a retro sonic playground.
Saadiq’s themes are relationships: romantic, sexual, and brotherly. One kiss can change a life, one phone call can be prayer answered, and one walk around the block can last a lifetime. That’s the imaginary force of pop even, or especially, when it’s soul pop. Life’s gestures and rhythms resonate outward, full and sweet.
On two songs, those gestures are explicitly, widely social. “Keep Marchin'” could have been a civil rights-era double-entendre hit, with its optimism, call-and-response, tambourine beat, and a great, limber bass line. On “Big Easy”, Saadiq returns to the tipping point of Katrina, for a fierce (and fiercely catchy) snapshot of the flood, fearing his lover’s body has floated away. When the jazz breaks through, his voice just repeats the words “please somebody tell me” over and over. The effect should be terrifying, if the music weren’t so absolutely buoyant.