Raphael Saadiq

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Rafael Sadiq is one of the great R and B writers and producers of the last thirty years. He started out writing and playing bass in the group Tony Tony Tony with his brother Dwayne Wiggins on guitar. The Tony's had an amazing four album run from eighty eight through ninety six, with hit singles like It Never Rains in Southern California, Feels Good, Anniversary, and If I Had No Loop. Since the group's disbanded, Rafael's released five solo albums, starting with two thousand and two's Instant Vintage. His most recent Jimmy Lee, is a collection of very personal songs about the traumas he and his family experienced growing up in Oakland, California. But Rafae's also done some amazing work behind the board. He's produced and written for the likes of DiAngelo, TLC, Mary J. Blige, Solange, Earthwin and Fire, and just recently worked in a handful of songs on Beyonce Cowboy Carter album. That's all in addition to his work as an Academy Award nominated film composer. It was a real honor to speak with Rafael Sadik from a studio on Los Angeles about some of the incredible work he's done the last handful of years with Beyonce and Solange, breaking down his collaboration with the'angelo on the classic track Lady, Plus discussing the underrated influence of sly Stone bassist Larry Graham on a whole generation of musicians coming up in the Bay Area. This is Broken Record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's my conversation with Rafael Sadik. To see the full video version of this episode, go to YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast Man. Raphael, thanks so much for having us as your beautiful I mean, this is one of the I've been to a lot of studios. This is thank You's one of the best.

00:02:00
Speaker 2: I thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, this is where it happens for me.

00:02:06
Speaker 1: You know how long you been here?

00:02:09
Speaker 2: I've been here twenty I think twenty years now, working out of here, working out here for twenty years.

00:02:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, So that would have been I guess Ray Ray. Maybe after Ray Ray you started doing your projects here.

00:02:24
Speaker 2: No, I think I did Ray Ray here, so maybe as longer?

00:02:29
Speaker 1: Wow? Was it not? Its in vantage though Instant Vintage.

00:02:32
Speaker 2: Oh so maybe I didn't. I forget which song which album came first, now, but I think I did Ray Ray was second. So I did the last song of on Instant Vintage. Just there's a hidden track at the end of every record that I do. Yes, So at the end of Instant Vintage, they gave me the keys to the studio and so I came in. I had an MP sixty and I just dropped the drum machine on the desk and I wrote the very last song to Instant Vintage.

00:03:07
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I want I want to ask you about that. How did that tradition start? Because actually I met One of my favorite cuts of yours is the hidden track on Stone Rolling.

00:03:20
Speaker 2: Is that what Larry Grim?

00:03:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's ridiculous.

00:03:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did that right here. Let's record it right where you're sitting, and me and Larry was here right here. Larry's a you know, I mean, that's my my guy. I've raised in the same neighborhood in Oakland that he he lived in. So we met through some people and I invite him to the studio and say I got this song, and we just I was it was It was hard for me to actually work around him to play bass. It seems like I can't really play bass when he's around. Really, Yeah, I just I just he's the only person I'm around that I I like lock up when he comes around.

00:04:02
Speaker 1: Kind of like playing guitar for the Hendrix or something. Yeah, that level of you know, yeah, Pard, the Magic Hendricks isn't here, like you know, Larry's still around.

00:04:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, Larry's around and he's still great.

00:04:13
Speaker 1: Did you play bass on that? Was that?

00:04:15
Speaker 2: Oh? No, that's that's Larry.

00:04:16
Speaker 1: That's what I thought. It really has that for that.

00:04:19
Speaker 2: Now he's a big boy. He plays big boy bass. You notice when he's playing the difference between just the years. You can feel like his his his something in his fingers is just different.

00:04:34
Speaker 1: He sounded great too. His his oh.

00:04:36
Speaker 2: Yeah he met me sound like it was like a chipmunk when when my voice comes on and then his voice comes on.

00:04:43
Speaker 1: He just came on. I was like, oh wow, but it has that age like you're talking about.

00:04:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't, you can't. I've been around a couple of singers and and that's what happened. I've sang around Charlie Wilson and I was singing his song and he came in on the other part of it and it just sounded like apples and oranges.

00:05:03
Speaker 1: What was what was the occasion for that?

00:05:05
Speaker 2: It was it was some awar show and it was a lot of different artists singing, and Charlie was singing and we did uh, we did our standing. I think we did a couple of songs. But he came on and you could just tell the age, the years that he put into it. And and Stevie. I've sang around Stevie before. Then I heard him sing like right after me, and it.

00:05:29
Speaker 1: Just sound like.

00:05:31
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, it's those pipes, you know, it's just those years, you know, like that working that muscle. Yeah, and this is really strong, you know.

00:05:41
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever get there, by the way, because you've seen too much shape. Man, you're in too good a shape.

00:05:46
Speaker 2: No, I think, but I think they're in shape that I can vocal shape. It's two different types of shapes, like get lungs. You know, your pipes they can hold notes longer than anybody. Celo Green is another person who can. Like I watched him sing Lovely Day one time, and he's been a lovely dude and he was looking at me. Was I was in Chicago with House of Blues and I was right above him and he said, lovely dude, and he's just looking at me, and it was going forever and how does he do that? So I just think that's those those pipes, you know, those age pipes of you know, working that muscle.

00:06:28
Speaker 1: And se Low too, just from I mean, and Stevie too. I mean Stevie has, of course something like special Sea Lo just has just such a just born with some pipes that are just fascinating, you know, like.

00:06:39
Speaker 2: He's the one of a kind. We always see each other in Atlanta somewhere and say we're going to work together. That's one person that do It'll be easy for me to work with because he's so soulful and I love soulful music too, So I'm waiting for that matchup. That's the perfect matchup for me.

00:06:57
Speaker 1: You should definitely do that. He should. You should do a full Larry project too, man.

00:07:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be that would be cool. I mean, we I used to. I used to when those records used to come out in my neighborhood, it would be a line in front of the store to buy Grand Central Station's Records. It was because he was more like a superhero to most in Oakland. I don't know about everywhere else, but you know, I would see people lining up at this store called records were called House of Music, was one of the Tony's records. House of Music. I titled the album House and Music because of that store.

00:07:34
Speaker 1: But I was just closed that long ago.

00:07:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, right now, I was. I was too young to go in that store at the beginning, because you know, they had all these black posters, you know, the black Swede posters, black Pussy Pussy and since you knowwhere since you know, when you go in the store and you're like eight years old, you're like, oh wow. But then you see like you know, James Brown soundtracks, Black Caesars, Black Caesar you know. So yeah, but Larry, it was definitely a line. So when now when I'm working or something and I'm talking to somebody, rest in peace, John John. He was always talking about John Singleton about comic books, and so I was never privy to be in those conversations about comic books because I wasn't into comic books. My comic books was Larry Graham gram Station in Parliament, funklic records album covers, Pedro Bell did all that, or that's ridiculous, that's an interesting like.

00:08:39
Speaker 1: I wonder because Larry Graham I spent some time living in Oakland, and so I happen to know how much love the Bay has for Larry. It does feel like maybe elsewhere Bootsy is kind of the one that.

00:08:52
Speaker 2: Larry's Larry's Larry Steph Curry in Oakland.

00:08:56
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's a great that's a great comparison. He really is, he really is. Was that was he your inspiration to pick up the bass?

00:09:05
Speaker 2: My inspiration to pick up the base came from my neighborhood. It was so many bass players and guitar players, and uh, he was the biggest influence once I picked it up because he did things that nobody was doing. And so you if you couldn't do what he was doing, you couldn't really walk into like a jam session and jump on the drums because the drummer was gonna challenge you, you know, see, like you know, you know how to play u pile, and if you didn't know how to play pile, then you couldn't be in the room. So he was the bar. He's always the bar. Another guy in Oakland on to play for the Hawkins family. He walked to Hawkins and Edwin Hawkins and Daniel Daniel Hawkins, Leannette Hawkins, Tremaine Hawkins. But the guy's Joel Joel Smith. He was the other uh, Steph Steph Curry in Oakland. I have a huge piece of arder that had somebody in there with the base I.

00:10:11
Speaker 1: Was one of I was like, is that Stanley like a young Stanley Cark with the bass?

00:10:14
Speaker 2: Joel Smith, He's amazed. He's an amazing drummer. He was an He was an amazing drummer and an amazing bass player. I looked up to him more than anybody.

00:10:24
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I almost was gonnask you too for those Rusty Allen because it kind of Mae was like he always got the hat on, but it kind of looked like him.

00:10:29
Speaker 2: But it's not Rusty. But Rusty is the beast. Rusty should get way more props than he does.

00:10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:10:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, because those those slide records, if he played on I'm still studying those records. Matter of fact, I just called somebody to try and find Rusty's phone number, really, so I could just just want to hang out with him.

00:10:46
Speaker 1: I think I have his email really yeah, okay, I'm pretty sure, Okay, yeah, yeah, he's those I don't want, like I almost feel like, you know, and I love Larry and I love Grand Central Station. I love but some of those Sly records got even better once like.

00:11:01
Speaker 2: He did, he did kill it. I mean, I never want to say that, that's like sack religious for me to say anything about Larry, but I have to say that fresh record well, do work well and then't even like if you listen to him play with Bobby Warmack Womat Yeah right, Rusty's like his his his choice selection on Bassis. Yeah, it's crazy Bassis. It's a crazy instrument. Man. You can, you know, fill up church and like a lot of those Downy Hathaway records, you know, the basses. It's a lot to know, a lot to learn. I love bass a lot, you know, so I'm always listening to music in my car and just so amazed on how many great bass players they really are.

00:11:52
Speaker 1: There's there's there's some great ones. Manino another who.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: Worked with a lot. Yeah, Pino comes by some time and we just have a bass off. One time we made a bass record. It was just me and him. We just it was no other instruments, but bass I don't know where to at.

00:12:07
Speaker 1: Y'all didn't put that out though, did you.

00:12:09
Speaker 2: No? He just you know, just pops in sometimes. Well he's not traveling with some big rock banders.

00:12:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, with the Who or whatever the whole He's like, I.

00:12:17
Speaker 2: Gotta learn seventy eight songs in two hours for the Who tour.

00:12:21
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, do you ever want to do anything like that? Like, dude, like a tour with somebody, like a side man for just like a year.

00:12:27
Speaker 2: I'd rather be a side man, really, trust me. If the Stones would have called me, like fifteen years ago, before the Base money happened for Darryl, Darryl may be gone. I wouldn't even did my second album for real. I'll be out what mom, bust, mom, Jet, come out. It's done.

00:12:45
Speaker 1: Someone's gotta hit you up.

00:12:46
Speaker 2: No, it's adventure just happened, and it's done out of solo stuff. I've never done it. I've been gone.

00:12:50
Speaker 1: It's so funny, dude. By speaking of which, you performed with Mick at the on the Grammys in twenty eleven day and that's the best of her mixed sound outside of the Stones really wow, the like the way y'all did that Solomon Burke song.

00:13:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, he's an amazing dude, like he. I mean, he's just came in and I wasn't supposed to play, you know, because you you you to play on the Grammys, you have to be nominated to even to play, even to assist another person. That's sort of the rules, I guess some bullshit rules whatever whatever. But Mick called me and said, I want you to play with me, and you know that's the Grammys. So we never really told the Grammys. We just he met. Somebody may have told him maybe a few days before they found out. Well what can they say. They can't say nothing that, you know, make play stadiums. He don't need to play the Grammys.

00:13:44
Speaker 1: No one. Yeah. So did you know him like that or was it no?

00:13:50
Speaker 2: No, he just I think he heard Stone rolling the album Don was is really good in front of his and I think that's how the affiliation happened. But it was right, I mean, it was it was fun. I mean I had a lot of questions for him, you know.

00:14:05
Speaker 1: Did you ask him?

00:14:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, Yeah, we talked about you know, hollow Wolf and we just talked about those Chess records days and you know, I'm a huge Hollandwool fan, and so he told me about all kind of stuff. He pulled out his harbor. We played blues the the rehearsals. We we had more fun at the rehearsals, like for four or five days than we did playing you know, at the Grammys. But it was it was really cool. He was really cool.

00:14:34
Speaker 1: It showed up on the Grammys though, Man, it was like it really did. It really did. Man.

00:14:38
Speaker 2: The band I had, the guys had like those guys are who was in the back, that's who I think, Calvin Turner, Josh on bas Josh Smith is the blues guitar man himself, Lamark Lamar Carter on drums, and I had Rob Bacon on guitar, which is a Detroit boy who's a blues guy, fun guy. I think I had four horn players. I think maybe a Berry trumpet, sacks bone. I had bj singing background, Erica Jerry singing, Charles play keys. But dude, did that band that was probably my best man. That was my best man. They fire, yeah, so you know, they all big. You know, Mick fans. So I think they played better for make than they play for me. I was looking back sometime.

00:15:34
Speaker 1: The hag Oh, it's so funny man, and you got some yeah those guys do. Lamar you mentioned he was on the Stone Rolling album. He was some of those drum sounds, y'all.

00:15:45
Speaker 2: He was on the record. Calvin played on the record and basically actually on the picture too. It's me, Calvin and Lamar and the pictures. No, not the one in the front, but there's a picture in the back that that plays to the back that we took this little picture. It's not highly publicized, but yeah, we did that. They played on a song called Moving down the Line. Yeah, but most of the record was played by me on drums. Really yeah, I played drums on most of all the way I see it, wow, and most of Stone Rolling.

00:16:22
Speaker 1: So when did you because you know, it's funny like I always think of you more as like a bass player. It seems like you've become more of a guitar player maybe over the years, but drums too, Like when did that? When did that happen?

00:16:36
Speaker 2: I think I picked up the drums the same time I picked up the bass. But I'm not a great drummer or nothing like that. I can, I can. I can put together beat in the record, but you wouldn't want me in your band. But in the studio, yeah, you want me in the studio because I played these beats that are like the fit of a vibe of what I'm doing, and sometimes it shifts, it gets a little off, and so it's sort of like that on the record. So Lamar when he plays my records over, he plays the mistakes I make and I'm like, just play it like you played.

00:17:10
Speaker 1: But he likes it.

00:17:11
Speaker 2: He's being funny. He's I'm like, bro, come on.

00:17:19
Speaker 1: Bro, that's funny speaking of that little like vibe. I was thinking about it, and you know, saying about the D'Angelo records and Brown Sugar. You know, I've heard quests Love say that. May like maybe y'all asked him to play in the first record or something and he wasn't feeling it, or maybe he like, I don't know, maybe he'd heard about it. It was just kind of a little dismissive because he wasn't there with R and B. But then he heard the album and loved like the drum sound and like just the groove y'all locked into and I feel like that groove a little later kind of got associated with Dyla who who's a genius of course as well, but but that kind of was like, y'all's not going to say, like not that it's a competition, but kind of early on, I was kind of y'all's.

00:18:06
Speaker 2: I think we me and me and danceel Will have the same background in gospel, which is the Hawkins family. We both grew up listening to Walter Ed, Danielle and Joe, and we didn't know that when we first got together, but we figured it out.

00:18:25
Speaker 1: It's kind of random. I mean, you were in the Bay.

00:18:27
Speaker 2: I was in the Bay. He was in Virginia. You know that music sort of was all around the world, Like really Andre Crouch was more of the bigger pop gospel, but the Hawkins family was the more great you know, but that was that. So it's somehow it got to Virginia and they got in his house. His dad's a great piano player, Dancel's dad, so it just it just sort of happened. We got in the studio, we was making music and.

00:19:00
Speaker 1: We were how did y'all even meet?

00:19:02
Speaker 2: We met through We met through an an r from a publishing company. We were signed to the same publishing company, so somebody introduced us. And the first time we met, Dean was supposed to come to my house and he didn't show up the first day and then but he came the next day. But I think he thought, you know, he was gonna come to a house and it was gonna look like the the rich and famous, probably with the spiral stairs and helpers everybody in the house, and it's like.

00:19:36
Speaker 1: I'm going to yeah.

00:19:38
Speaker 2: But but he thought to me, a lot of people. He don't really like a lot of people, you know, And then he found out I don't either. So when he got to my my little two bathroom, you know, two hundred and thirty five thousand dollars crib what you know? In my it was in the garage. It was me and him and my engineer. It's Sacramento, sac Yeah, And I was in this neighborhood full of like lobbies and politicians, right, and we were just and he's just he was just so surpris she didn't tell me. Later, I thought this house was gonna be crowded a lot of people, and it wasn't. And so I started playing uh, lady. That's the first thing we worked on, was lady. Yeah, I have the idea because it was supposed to be for Tony's record, the idea, but of music. Maybe I didn't like it. They didn't. They didn't like the initial idea. They never heard it what it was going to be. Neither did I. But I played the guitar riffs for D'Angelo and he said, he said, I like it. I said, cool. So I was gonna call somebody over to play my guitar parts over. He said, no, you usuld leave what you did. And that's the first time my guitar playing playing ever got on the record. Wow, they ever got on the record. Yeah. So, but I think how we came up with that, we figured it out we were we were playing. We were playing, and we were playing behind the beat, but I think we were just really trying to lock lock something in and so he would fall back and he would start laughing. Then I would fall back and we started kind of smiling laughing, and it became we just kept going back and forth but not talking about it, and it became sort of the style of his record. But that's the way he sing sings, that's the way he plays wow, and it was just natural for him. But he's a Dela fan. Yeah, and so then you know I'm a Dela fan too, So I figured it out later. We were just mocking Dila.

00:21:45
Speaker 1: Really that that early on.

00:21:47
Speaker 2: I think Deyla was the first one. Okay, are we just are we heard it through hip hop?

00:21:52
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right?

00:21:53
Speaker 2: Maybe just maybe we heard it on some on some on some Wool Tang records. Maybe we heard it on some Tribe records. We just love I love hip hop, right, so I think both our love for the Hawks and gospel and hip hop up and rock and songwriting, It's just it was just a perfect storm at the right time.

00:22:15
Speaker 1: The way you explain that is kind of It's perfect that y'all met, because it really is the right combo of of everything. I mean.

00:22:22
Speaker 2: I just talked to him yesterday and we don't talk much, you know what I mean, And it's hard to catch either one of us, but yesterday we caught up and was like, y'all get picked up. I picked up saying I didn't expect you to pick up, but I was going to leave you a message about about your feel on kids because now I'm practicing keys like, you know, piano a lot, and since I've been studying it, I always knew what he knew on piano, but now it's it's really uh, I really know, like his his touch, his approach the piano was different from most gospel piano players because these sort of graduated from church. He didn't, He didn't make records and get locked into like playing a whole bunch of courts like like church guys do. He's like really figured out his place with songwriting and his touch and his field, and it's different. And that's why I called him. We were just laughing about that.

00:23:19
Speaker 1: Because did you send them some stuff or like, no, he heard.

00:23:23
Speaker 2: Stuff that I got and he you know, we we always go back and forth. But he he got some records he that he's excited about, and you know, we always just no, no, no, he was here. He came here one day. We played, he played the Hollywood Bowl and I play guitar with him, and he came here afterwards and we just you know, we just pressed play and play records. And and he's playing guitar now and he's playing bass, and he's he's funky's right now.

00:23:55
Speaker 1: I like seeing him play guitar on that.

00:23:58
Speaker 2: Q tips is q tips is getting good on bass. He's getting good on bass. Shat Heat is really good on bass. Ship you know Ship. Yeah, Adrian Young is getting good on bass. All my friends that didn't play, they all pretty good.

00:24:15
Speaker 1: Now did Adrian never play? He played?

00:24:17
Speaker 2: But now I heard him play like maybe two weeks ago on the record. I was like, man, who's playing on the record? I said, wow, I said you. I said you was playing, you know, maybe two years ago, but now I wouldn't have known that was you.

00:24:32
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:24:33
Speaker 2: So you know, I love to see people putting in the work.

00:24:36
Speaker 1: That's a huge compliment from you.

00:24:38
Speaker 2: They putting in the work.

00:24:39
Speaker 1: That's wild. We'll be right back with more from roe Field after this break. We're back with Roe Fel. You know, it's funny you mentioned that you brought lady to the Tonies and kind of I was curious about yours when you kind of left the Tonies your switched the guitar, Like how your brother Dwayne felt about that because he was kind of the guitar, Like was there like a little friction with that or like no, no, you look at you like like you know you're playing with MC Jagger on the tour, make Jagger at the Grams like, come on.

00:25:15
Speaker 2: Dog, Actually, I wouldn't even know. I wouldn't even know. But when you're gonna be a front man, I like front man's that play guitars, not bass. I mean, I love like Larry that plays bass. But it's hard to play bass and sing Bootsy level forty two.

00:25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Rush guy.

00:25:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you gotta really be I've played bass on one tour as a front, as a singing in the front. It's it's not easy. It's fun, but it's not easy. I'd rather I want somebody to dig in the bass when I'm singing. Yeah, right, so I have to have the guy that relieves me on Bay. It's gotta be like that dude.

00:25:56
Speaker 1: You know, how did you pick the dude for the recent Tony's tour?

00:26:03
Speaker 2: How did I I seen him play? I think I found him on Instagram. I've seen him play Gosh Wow, yeah, Josh. He's a bad boy too, and he used to play with MPG. But I didn't know that at the time. You just found him and I found him at the time, and I knew he was solid. You know, you just need somebody solid. They they got some they got they got chopped, but they also know how to play, you know, be solid.

00:26:30
Speaker 1: You know, did you consider doing the tour like based on the tour or nah?

00:26:35
Speaker 2: Oh no, I never even because I've never played bassed on the Tonys tour. Never. I've never even played guitar mm hmm.

00:26:43
Speaker 1: But you're on the records.

00:26:45
Speaker 2: I played all the records. Yeah, yeah, how.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: Can you and you just the same reason you didn't want you wanted to be because you're you're you're leading.

00:26:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't think I could do it, honestly, to be honest, I didn't think I could do it. I didn't think that. You know, syllables and rhythms. You know, sometimes when you sing a word in the syllole, sometimes your fingers.

00:27:04
Speaker 1: Go with it.

00:27:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you have to separate like a drummer. You have to separate that pop tat. I could do it. I've done it. I've done a tour with me Rob Bacon. Rob was on guitars and bass, forgot the drummer and Kelvin Wooden play keys, and it was fun. It was, you know, less people, more money for me, right, Yeah, it was fun.

00:27:29
Speaker 1: One less player. You gotta that was fun. How do you separate? I mean, you've, like, man, you've been on a hell of a run lately with with composing and writing and producing these days, Like how are you spending your time like musically, like are you are you? Are you writing a lot for your Like.

00:27:50
Speaker 2: I spent my time right there on that piano, this piano. Yeah, I spent most of my time on the piano. I haven't recorded anything, and maybe maybe it's close to six months because I just spent you know, I just I said, I just want to practice and just play and not just loop everything, because you know, when you're recording now you're able to you just loop everything and you never get any practice time on any instrument. So I'm just doing a lot of listening to you know, a lot of Donnie, a lot of earth Wind, a lot of going to shows I just wanted, you know, concerts, and figuring out when I'm a tour again in twenty five, and and just figuring out a lot of keyboard stuff, listen to songs that I really love and learning how to play them and just knowing, you know, learning what I'm playing. You know, I'm taking piano lessons. I take piano lessons three days a week. Wow, I don't take classical pianos. I haven't played no one full classical piece yet. But because I'm I'm just starting from the very reading everything. Yeah. So I played first bone in school. I played trombone in high screen. We was cheating in school, That's why we was writing down the positions, you know, fun too for we knew, you know, I could read bass cleft pretty good then, but you know you don't. You don't use it, you lose it. Yeah, so it's from the beginning.

00:29:22
Speaker 1: Now, Wow, what what what made you want to like woodshed right now? Like? What was the impetus for that? Like was like a moment where you're like, oh, man.

00:29:28
Speaker 2: Like I got bored. I mean I just I love I love piano, I love chlores, I love voice sings, and I just want I wouldn't have so much artillery to write to grab from. Like I can hear everything, I can hear it, but I just want to be able to go to it in like two seconds. So my nephew, he plays piano, Dylan, and he's from another another world. Yeah, he can. He could pick up anything and learn anything, and not just I always tell him to not don't stop, because he's doing pretty good. He's he's done a lot of records, he worked with a lot of people. And because he's so talented that you know, you could you could stop playing your main instrument. His main instrument is piano, but he plays guitar, drums, his his little brother Jaden, he plays bass. He's funky as hell. He he's been playing like Larry Grahams song since he was like nine years old. What and talking like Larry, acting like them. The whole thing is yeah, the whole thing. So you know, when you're in the industry, you just don't want to fall off the instrument that you love. And so I always tell him, like, are you practicing? You know, are you practicing? Don't don't stop because you got a record out with this person. This person keep playing. So I took some of my own advice and jumped on the piano. Looked on Google. Found this. This piano teacher, Kristen is the Tahanga pianos. I found it. I thought she was in Tahunga to Pega Canyon Pianos and she was actually in Seattle. So I like, have a screen here, I mean a camera here, a camera here, camera here on my upright piano in the back.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: Okay, you're zooming on that.

00:31:18
Speaker 2: I'm zooming yeah, and it's it's it's been really cool. So I haven't written any music, but when I started writing music, I think it's gonna be a little different.

00:31:30
Speaker 1: You have a whole new like bag to pull from.

00:31:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, yeah, Because now I'm playing like stylistic songs. I'm going over all the songs that I used to play some of the best writers or you know, piano players.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what do you like? What are the one what are the songs that stand out for you as well? The songs that you love growing up that that that are also like incredible piano songs.

00:31:52
Speaker 2: It's gonna sound redundant, but that's why I started listening to the Hawkins family because I felt like all those records, if I learned those records just almost everything I wanted to know. But then I would say, like, you know, Tom Bell and the Creed, you know very good piano songs, and it falls riding place with all like the Spinners and the Dell Phonix, the STYLEX, all those people, and then Earth Wind and Fire. I was definitely all over the Gratitude albums, the live album.

00:32:23
Speaker 1: Did you ever see them in the day.

00:32:25
Speaker 2: I didn't see the Gratitude tour, no, okay, but I saw Funk on the Ground. I saw Parliament. I saw Bernie Burrell play live. I saw Tower Power live. I saw Bob Marley and the Whalers, the Berkeley Greek.

00:32:46
Speaker 1: I don't think i've met anybody that's aw's. I met one person one time that had tickets and they didn't go for some reason. I was like, I did have tickets.

00:32:53
Speaker 2: I was just on a bike, riding a bike from East Oakland just to to Berkeley, just being some bad kids is riding so far from home, and we were just riding around and I heard this reggae music and my friends kept going on the and I stopped and I'm looking through the fence and I'm like, what is that? And I could see Bob Marley and and I just stayed there. I never left.

00:33:18
Speaker 1: Did you know Bob Marley at the time, I.

00:33:20
Speaker 2: Know who he was. I didn't know much about it. I knew who he was, but I didn't leave. I just stayed there by the fence. I watched the defence. That's that's incredible. Yeah, so I'm I'm a huge whalers, you know. I mean the base plan from Family Man is the naughtiest.

00:33:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:33:40
Speaker 2: I like rhythm sections like brothers. Like the rhythm section with him and the Family Man and his brother on drums, it's the tightest drum section. I would say, I would put them neck in neck with with the James Brown rhythm section. Wow, it's different, but it's tight.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: That's the hell. That's a hell of a that's a hell of a I know, I'm gonna have to go back and listen for that specific Oh.

00:34:03
Speaker 2: Man, it's it's it's just crazy that and then I'll go to Verdein and Freddy. Yeah, you know those those are my rhythm sections, the Bob rhythm section, earth Wind and Fire rhythm section, and James and of course James jameson.

00:34:21
Speaker 1: James Yeah, right Motown in Motown. Yeah, you worked with earth Wind and Fire and with like when Maurice was still I did.

00:34:29
Speaker 2: I had a chance to work with Maurice and talked to Maurice White a lot.

00:34:34
Speaker 1: What was that like, because he's scary.

00:34:36
Speaker 2: Man. That was scary working with Maurice. I mean they all walked in the room, three of them, Philip Philip Philip, Philip Bailey, Maurice White, and Ralph Johnson. Yeah, they walked in the room and I was super nervous. But they're really nice and there's so much history. You could feel the history when they walk in the room. You could just feel that like like we just we bad were bad boys, like we bring it. Yeah, you know he was a band leader. You know, he was a band leader guy.

00:35:12
Speaker 1: And then yeah, what was the dynamic? How was how was Maurice's dynamic in the room with.

00:35:16
Speaker 2: He produced me? He produced me the producer.

00:35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's crazy.

00:35:22
Speaker 2: Like when I was singing, I was singing a falsetto part and show me the way, and he told me to tell en and just kick the reverb a little bit higher. It's producing tip, damn. Yeah, from the best.

00:35:37
Speaker 1: Definitely from the best, especially for the like if it's a producing tip on a on a falset vocal. Yeah, come on, you know that solid advice? Did did you? Did you? Didn't? You didn't play? Did you? You never played live with them? Did you?

00:35:54
Speaker 2: I've never played live with with Earth the Fire, no doubt. I mean I would still love to do that now, but I mean it's still need Vernein is playing you. Yeah, you can't. I mean that's the that's the back bone earth on guitar though, you know, if you're not moving. Nah, they just let me clap my hand. Maybe I could sing a part with Philip, but I'm definitely not. Then jump on a guitar, bass man, maybe a sound check, soundcheck, a couple of sound checks. I would like to play with with Earth Wind and Fire. And I got a chance to play with now Rogers and chic Wow for something at Apple. When was that maybe a year ago, a year something for something for some type of new headsphones or something. You know. I was like, oh yeah, I'm definitely doing that. But it wasn't a live audience.

00:36:46
Speaker 1: I was it though.

00:36:47
Speaker 2: It was amazing because you know, but that words is right. This is my guy too. Yes, she dressed liked him. I did the whole thing. I had school boy glasses on the tweet jagged. I did the whole thing. Now I was looking at looking at me and saying, wow, man, this dude went all the way in and I'm like, of course, of course I did.

00:37:07
Speaker 1: Damn that must have been Bernard Edwards. Is ridiculous. Yeah, of all the base places we talked about today, I feel like he might be the most underappreciated.

00:37:16
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, he's he's he's celebrated, though people do celebrate Bernard. I feel I even feel like Queen that I took a piece of another one by the dust is from good times.

00:37:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

00:37:32
Speaker 2: Boom boom another one. Boom boom, don't don't that was smart. That's a nice bite. That's a nice.

00:37:43
Speaker 1: Little give me, can't be mad?

00:37:48
Speaker 2: I love. I was like, oh, that's a nice bike.

00:37:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, it stands out in the catalog though, it was like, that's a that's it. How was tell me about the Beyonce sessions, man, or how the work on that came to be? Because I was you know, the singles were were great, sixteen Carriages to my favorite of the early singles, and I know you worked on both of those. But then when the album came out, I was kind of an American Uh uh what was the top? What's what's the topic? American Requiem came on, I was like, yeah, I gotta really listen because.

00:38:26
Speaker 2: Well, they did a great job of like having the right people in the room. You know. I always tell people about Beyonce's uh her ear and her like. You know, decision making is the most important thing you could be as an artist. Somebody that tours, somebody that makes records, somebody who knows their audience. So if you know your audience, it's easy to have musicians in the room that you think can push forward what you're trying to do. And so for for me, you know, Dream was in the room, a lot of great musicians. So we took songs and I changed some songs around, you know, but then it was great things on the record already, So I just had a great It was almost like it was almost like the all star team, you know, with people that I didn't know, like the the banjo playing, you know, with you know, yeah, random Giddings, Rani Guinness, who like that record wouldn't be that record without her doing that. That is amazing, right, So I think that's I just I just think they a and already great. They had a great team, They had great people.

00:39:39
Speaker 1: Was that banjo part on there? But when you first heard the song no.

00:39:44
Speaker 2: No, but she knew like she wanted to have it on the record, and you always want to always I love working with people who know what they want. It makes producing fun, you know, are being a part of something fun.

00:40:00
Speaker 1: What was the what was the ask of you? Like? What was like? What what did you feel like you were? Why was Yeah? Yeah?

00:40:07
Speaker 2: I think I was in the room because is I I take I'm coachable and I take instructions and I can I can do what you ask me to do. And I actually love what I do. And I love actually knowing that somebody is gonna you dish them a dime, they about to go dunk it. That's my inspiration for me. I think they know, like you know, I could be in a room and work with people, and it's it's more about the camaraderie of working with others, you know, and not being like I'm a producer instead of like no, we're in a room, like we have instruments and we it's time to get it done.

00:40:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:40:53
Speaker 2: And I think that's why I was in the room because I can play in many genres.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: But you also played a lot of parts. So it's like when you win there with your set, like you're like musician, had on or producer like the dreams already, like how do you how do you balance that? So many people?

00:41:09
Speaker 2: Man, I'm only well, sometimes I'm in the room by myself, and some of the stuff I did here.

00:41:15
Speaker 1: Like they like this, sent you stuff and whole sending stuff too.

00:41:18
Speaker 2: That was already like Bodyguard was pretty much a a song that I did you know that you wrote that, wrote that alone?

00:41:27
Speaker 1: Because you do that, you're doing the count off Bodyguard.

00:41:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, she kept the counting. Yeah, but I wasn't even going to like play that song. I was going through another song and she heard it and she said, what's that? She got a air like that, And that's why I said, not many artists could take a song like Bodyguard and say I like this song and I want to make a record. They wrote some different change some lyrics and did different things. But it's only maybe two people I know that takes some of the stuff that nobody would take from me. That's that's Beyonce now in D'Angelo wow and.

00:42:06
Speaker 1: Solange and right yeah, right, so lunch too.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: Right, that'll take some like I wouldn't even play some things for people because I know they might be like, oh, that's just way too like you know, but you could, you know, the great ones, the great ones want to they want to dive in.

00:42:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be right back with more from Rafael Saidik after the break. Here's the rest of my conversation with Rafael Sadik. He told me the story of Cranes in the Sky.

00:42:36
Speaker 2: Crans in the Sky was already eight years old. The music was and I was really singing something in mine it's what you do, it's a certain thing. Oh, that's what I was doing, something crazy like that. And when I mess the lunge. We were both doing these sixties records at first, and then we were gonna hook up, and I wanted her to write for me, with me, for that song, for me, for me, for your album. Right, So she had a copy of it, but I think it had my vocal on it. But then she wrote something for herself and it was years later, maybe a few years later, but it was already eight years old, and I didn't have a copy of it. I didn't have a clean copy.

00:43:27
Speaker 1: You gave her the actual like.

00:43:32
Speaker 2: We never had a copy. Wow. So when she was calling me asking me for a clean version with no lyrics, I didn't have it. So a good friend of my, Conrad, who lived up in Portland, as a videographer and he sometimes takes my songs and and sort of makes short films, and so I was talking to him about about he said, you know, I have a copy of it on a CD on a disc. So that's the only thing we had, because.

00:44:04
Speaker 1: You would have sent it to him just to that. Was it just so we could make a of a film with it, or I like a little.

00:44:11
Speaker 2: Short film shooting some friends and like, you know, just some stuff on the street.

00:44:15
Speaker 1: How the hell did he get on that list?

00:44:18
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:44:18
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: Conrad Montgomery, he's a he's a track and field coach. He's a theod friend of our rogers and he we run together. We run together. He taught me really how to how to run. He's a track and field guy, and he had it. And I said, the only only one I have is it's on It's on a disc, and so we that record is nothing separated. That's the record that came out.

00:44:47
Speaker 1: Wow, So you ripped it from that.

00:44:49
Speaker 2: She's just saying over the just put that in pro tools and sing over over top on the top of it. Wow. Yeah, that's that's that's wild. So when it works, it works. Sometimes you don't even I mean we I think they compressed it and mixed it that way, like with compression and make it, you know, but pretty much it was you know, the bass was there, the drums was already there. Melotron is is that melotron right there?

00:45:17
Speaker 1: Wow?

00:45:18
Speaker 2: And this is it has worked so it kind of cracks and does some weird shit. So no melotron sounds like that melotron because of that. So I never get it fixed because of that. And but it was all on that record. It was not anything recorded. The only thing that that was recorded over was my nephew Dylan played He played another he played an acoustic h an upright piano or he played a grand py on top of it. Didn't Cilancha added some like crazy like bail was just like boom she added that. But everything else was pretty much already multi tracked and could we couldn't separate anything.

00:45:59
Speaker 1: Did she record that here with you or did she do it on her on her own?

00:46:03
Speaker 2: Did she? I think she recorded creams here? Yeah?

00:46:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's wild. That that's the origins man, you know what I mean, Like that's a that's a that's a Grammy winning project man, that you just was like discarded with some track co. Yeah.

00:46:23
Speaker 2: You just have to make music, and to make music because I don't make music to to give to one, to give to anyone I give. I make music to sort of entertain myself because I love music that much that I just want to hear it if I come and if I come in the studio, I want to hear music. Sometimes I come to the studio and I don't even I don't even play any music. I just I might play Madden or something like the Arcade, the old one, like when Tom went like McNab was the quarterback.

00:46:54
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, going back, Yeah so you played with Okay, yeah, McNab.

00:46:59
Speaker 2: I play McNabb and then taroll Owens is the receiver. He catches everything right out there.

00:47:06
Speaker 1: You don't play you don't play with with with the Raiders.

00:47:09
Speaker 2: Every blue Moon I played with the Raiders. The Raiders wasn't that good that year, Okay, But sometimes, you know, sometimes I play with the Reds.

00:47:16
Speaker 1: I am.

00:47:17
Speaker 2: I am definitely a Raiders fan. I'm a Raiders fan. No, no, don't get it twisted. But I just if I'm playing an arcade, I don't do it.

00:47:24
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, you gotta go with the Eagles on that I got.

00:47:26
Speaker 2: I gotta go with the Eagles. Or I have to go with the best defense on that game. I would say somebody like Rick Ross will probably say, no, that's not true because I already's really good on the arcade. I would say Green Bay. I like to play with Green Bay Kansas City because they had Priest Holmes as a running back at the time. So I just like to play with the players to do special things.

00:47:48
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't know you're a video game guy.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I have a video game.

00:47:53
Speaker 1: You do.

00:47:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, we may games. It's called Illphonic Wow, Illphonic with the Friday the thirteen Friday, thirteenth State Ghostbusters. So my engineer who recorded the Way I See It and and Jimmie Lee he mixed it, and Storm Rolling. His name is Chuck Brungard. So we started a video game company almost twelve thirteen years ago because we were in the business. We were just we were trying to like make records, and we couldn't fit the system of you know, we work on the record, they'd have somebody else mix it, and it was just getting kind of weird. So I came up with this idea to start a video game company because it was a joke about it. What's the death Jam game.

00:48:48
Speaker 1: It's a death jam game.

00:48:49
Speaker 2: It's a fight game.

00:48:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:48:51
Speaker 2: It was The Rush, The Rush anyway, a friend worked for the Coming. It was all these rappers and it was a fight game. And I was like, I'm like, you gotta build me in the game. And my friends like, we don't put R and B people in the game. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm gonna make my own game. And I'm called the Ghetto Golf and and we just laugh. And so when she left, my partner Chuck goes, you know, if you really want to start a game company, you know, that's what I do for I went to school for programming. I'm saying, let's do it. Let's call it ill Phonic because ill Matic is my favorite hip hop album, one of them. So I called it ill Phonic. And then maybe like the next month, we had like this test game of Ghetto Golf. And from there we started taking the publishers for about a year or two, and the next thing we were you know, I was at all the conference game conferences and I just kept put on the law because I felt like gamers don't really care about musicians having you know, having a game company. It's about the gamer. It's about you know, the game playoff. It's about them, it's not about me, it's not about Chuck. And so then we kept going. Then we moved the company to Denver, Colorado, and now it's in Colorado and it's in Tacoma. Wow, it's still it's active, active right now?

00:50:13
Speaker 1: What are you games you're developing?

00:50:17
Speaker 2: Wow? I always always blow this title, and they will kill me if I say this. I'm just not going to say it because one time I spoke on the game and I wasn't supposed to and it was like I just blew up the world or something.

00:50:31
Speaker 1: We don't we don't, don't got to go there. There. Should revive the death Jam game. That sounds incredible.

00:50:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a good games in it. Yeah, yeah, runs. I don't know, I can't think of the name of the game. But I love games. But I played more sports games than I do first person shooter games, which I really want to start playing more first person shooter games. I just you just got to put a lot of time into that, you know, like learning, I'm still like Call of Duty, I'm still getting blown up on the first stage. I'm like, you gotta keep keep going. I can't follow the I can't look at it. I can't look at it and follow it. Yeah, so I think I should just get better on piano instead of.

00:51:15
Speaker 1: That's the better That's a better move man.

00:51:17
Speaker 2: That's what I'm gonna do.

00:51:18
Speaker 1: That's about the time I got out of GANS. I was like, well, I gotta spend like you know, I got to train for the game. I'm like, man, I can't really be involved with this.

00:51:24
Speaker 2: I can't catch any passes on like Madden the New Like it's just it's like just it just bounce off my fingers. I'm like, is there a button? I'm always asking kids, is there a button that the fingers do like this to catch the ball because I can't. I could do a short pass or screen, but if I'm going for a bomb, it's like.

00:51:43
Speaker 1: You gotta go to training camp, man. Yeah, it's too much time.

00:51:47
Speaker 2: That's too much time.

00:51:49
Speaker 1: You know. I want to ask you. Speaking of you brought up Omadic made me think of the Chronic because I always think of those two albums in my mind for some reason, different years, but just incredible debut rap albums. Right, but Chronic two still still d r E still and you did still Ray right, Yeah, on inadvantage. It feels like a speaking of like a.

00:52:10
Speaker 2: Good that was a great bike. Yeah, of course. I mean I'm a huge Dre fan. You know. His name is Dre, Mine is Ray, And I was like, hmm, you know, Dre always have those lyrics and this is the motherfucking thinks I get. I kind of feel like Dre's sometimes so that's how you No, not really, but I love that lyric and some motherfucking thinks I get. But when that blink flink clink clink clink, I was like, let's turn that into like a lotaby, like a pretty song. That the hardest song that everybody's boo boom boom. I'm like, let's turn that to sink. I'm coming bump too, you you know. I'm like, let's flip it, let's put it on his head and let's change it. I'm coming bump to you wear something see through you know. Just happened just really fast. Yeah, but that was definitely inspired by Did.

00:53:09
Speaker 1: You hear from Dre on that?

00:53:12
Speaker 2: Nah?

00:53:12
Speaker 1: I bet he appreciates it though.

00:53:14
Speaker 2: Oh no, definitely definitely got to Like, you know, Dre is a music guy, you know.

00:53:19
Speaker 1: And you'll both both worked with Don Robinson.

00:53:21
Speaker 2: We both did Yeah, Vogue, we both did Yeah. We both have stories. Okay working with good stories good stories.

00:53:31
Speaker 1: Can you share what you can? It's the one you can. Did you know in Vogue from Oakland?

00:53:37
Speaker 2: I did?

00:53:38
Speaker 1: They are I feel like.

00:53:40
Speaker 2: I mean beautiful, some of the nicest people, and we sort of came from the same camp with Denzel Foster and Tommy Tommy Thomas McElroy.

00:53:51
Speaker 1: Which did they did I got five on it?

00:53:54
Speaker 2: They did, I got five on it. They did lean on me with Club Club Nouveau, they did, I mean situation situation number nine for Club Nouveau and that's just five on it. But they did Engine number nine. They just uh they and they signed us. Came the Tony's went through tough enough production, they found us, they signed us. I didn't know that they're responsible for they had the reason why I'm sitting here talking to you.

00:54:26
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:54:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still talk to him. I mean I talked to him pretty much, you know, a couple of times a month. You know, Denny. Denny's a golfer. He plays golf, so he tries to get me out there and playing golf. I'm not good, but I'm trying, and Tommy is just uh, Tommy. Tommy started, he started fighting. He became a fighter. He always had he was always a martial arts guy, and then I think he became what he called he was a martial arts fighter.

00:54:57
Speaker 1: He was fighting.

00:54:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, he started doing that. He said, he got hit really hard and he stopped.

00:55:04
Speaker 1: That's a good reason to stop. That's why I never started with that.

00:55:08
Speaker 2: And yeah and yeah, but those guys I'm really responsible for, you know. So that's how your career, that's how we got to Mercury. Wow, that's how we got there. To those guys, and I'm I'm lucky to have them in my in my you know, my career, because I learned a lot. But just by listening to them.

00:55:28
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Man. How how was the tour with the Tony's.

00:55:34
Speaker 2: The tour, but the Tonys was amazing. It was definitely a bucket list. We you know, we took the phones. I took the phones.

00:55:43
Speaker 1: You took the phones away from from the audience.

00:55:45
Speaker 2: And because I wanted the audience to have a good time the way that I've seen like the old Jays. I didn't have a phone when I was a kid, and That's where I learned. I feel like not having a phone, and you know, and you're actually sitting with your friend or your mate and you you're singing, they're dancing with each other, and you know, you're giving people a moment of freedom that they don't that they don't they don't know that they actually lost you know, nobody knows, you know, were attached to our phones.

00:56:17
Speaker 1: No one remembers life before a phone man.

00:56:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, And you're not actually doing anything with the videos anyway, Like you just want to show your friends that you were at the show. But it's better that you watched the show and it's entirety like black, we rehearsed, you know. So it was. It was. It was amazing. Though the songs are fun as single. It was great to be around my brother and Tim and and you know, introduced some new musicians like Sharky who play guitar for us, who helped me out tremendously to put the show together.

00:56:54
Speaker 1: It was.

00:56:55
Speaker 2: It was amazing. It was having an out of body, like an out of body experience like more of like I feel like I felt my ancestors talking to me, especially in Mens Memphis. Was this we played at this in this venue that just felt it was packed, like it was like it was like black people from the front to the back. And we haven't played I haven't played the audience with all black people in a long time really, because my audience is very diverse, you know, over the years.

00:57:31
Speaker 1: As a solo artist, you feel like as.

00:57:33
Speaker 2: A solo artist, it's just got very diverse. But this this audience was black from the front to the back. Man in the South was everywhere. It was a few different people in different places, but it just felt like this whole because nobody had the phone. You could you could look at me and I could look at you. So it's probably different for artists. Really doesn't don't know how that feels anymore to have a phone, to have a you know, five thousand people looking right at you and not.

00:58:04
Speaker 1: A phone, and you're you're the main main thing.

00:58:07
Speaker 2: So I think we we we share something that we both haven't had in a long time. So it brought out this energy of these spirits and energies that I felt like most of the time I was I felt like I felt like it didn't even happen. It was just so you know, every moment we could take our time you could walk off. We had an intermission. People were very patient. You know, it felt like it was like a house party, like we were all together in this house party, and it was just everybody at the good time. They were talking, they were hugging, he was kissing, and sometimes the audience wasn't even looking at me. They was, you know, talking to their girl and she's talking to her men. They wasn't. They was just enjoying it, thinking about the times when they heard this music for the first time, and everybody was sort of reflecting on they may have lost people in the family, and it had this real deep feeling that I just never I never felt. And so it was funny when there was anybody of any other, you know, if they're somebody whiter some at the shows, it almost felt like a Malcolm X rally. It felt like it was this Cia. It felt like a movie. I'm like, this is sit out of my market. But but then as we got closer to San Francisco, it got more diverse. Okay, people came out.

00:59:21
Speaker 1: You got the Paramount in.

00:59:23
Speaker 2: We played the Paramount and then we played I Forgot. We played in San Francisco some.

00:59:28
Speaker 1: Hall, Wharf Field do you play the war Field.

00:59:31
Speaker 2: Didn't play the war field. We played. They played inside. It was raining hard outside. But yo, I've never played the Paramount ever. This is my That was my first time playing the Paramount, and it was really good to bring it home. We brought it home.

00:59:43
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful theater in Oakland. It was beautiful.

00:59:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was so the experience was it was amazing. I just felt like we needed to give people, you know, give it back to them one more time, something that they gave to us. They gave us the gift to to like our music and to like what we were doing because we didn't know what we were doing this, you know, just kids making music with a record deal, and we were able to put our some test, some tests of the time, music that people still listen to.

01:00:14
Speaker 1: I mean, how did it feel for you guys to do it, because because I mean, I feel like and I guess there's two ways of thinking about it. When you guys broke up, if that's what y'all want to call it. After House of Music, I feel like you guys kind of went out on top, like the House of Music, Like I love all the records. House music is like falling away from me my favorite record of y'all's, and it's like, damn, there's probably so much more y'all could have done. Or maybe it was the right time. I don't so, I don't know, but y'all left like on top for sure. Yeah we did, I mean so to get together, like you know, twenty years later, Like how did that feel for you? Guys?

01:00:50
Speaker 2: It felt because we rehearsed right in this room. We rehearsed here, and it felt good to see everybody in the room and you know, like playing those songs live, no no back tracks, just it felt really good. It was more for me, like the nieces and nephew as family members too, you know, and from my father, who's not loving anymore. He would have wanted us to do that, and I really wanted to. He said something to me before about you know, how to look at things, you know, no matter what you think they are, how you look at them, and you know, and you how you want to be perceived. And I wanted to be perceived as I wanted to get people what they wanted because when we were younger, Yeah, we blew it. We we broke up, you know, we we we didn't we didn't we didn't run it. I left, you know, I left the group. But it was the perfect time for me to leave the group. I mean, I didn't want to be a member. I always have these stories about Eddie Kendricks, one of my favorite people, you know, and he it was hard for him to leave the Temptations. I'm guessing right. It's such a big group, such big staple, stable songs or and like you know Richerally leaving the Commodorees. You know, he had big, huge compositions, and I didn't want to get stuck being a just a group guy. I felt like I had more to offer and I had ideas of how I wanted to do things. And I wasn't like the band leader guy who could tell people, you know, this is how it's going to go, just do what I say. So that was better for me to step off and just and just try and you know, and see.

01:02:39
Speaker 1: What I was going to do.

01:02:40
Speaker 2: I wanted to work with other people. I just wanted to play music, you know, and see if I could copy these these legends that I loved.

01:02:49
Speaker 1: He didn't feel like you could do both, like you didn't feel like that was.

01:02:53
Speaker 2: Nah nah no, I just I just came home one day and was like, just buy some Seatson tickets to the Sacramento Kings. And I did, and I met Brian Grant, who became one of my best friends to this day. And I didn't want to, you know, he was I had a detail shop up there, and so the Kings cars will come there, different cars will come there. People will come there.

01:03:16
Speaker 1: But so you got the season tickets just as like A I can't go. I can't, I can't book nothing because I no.

01:03:23
Speaker 2: I just I got When I decided I was leaving the group, I just decided I just moved the Sacramentos new and Sacramento bought this house. There was nothing to do, and I was like, it's not shit to doing Sacramento, but louts a strip bar or lots a game.

01:03:42
Speaker 1: So I did both and season tickets.

01:03:46
Speaker 2: No, not season tickets, but not season tickets. But I mean that's where I was like, you just hear a lot of Metallica and Sacramental strip bars.

01:03:53
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's dude, that's always a Metallica.

01:03:57
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh yeah, this is cool Metallica. There. Nikki's coming up right now.

01:04:02
Speaker 1: Guys.

01:04:03
Speaker 2: The Metallican truck drivers and there was a Sacramento Kings and then and so people was asking Brian for tickets all the time. You know, he had a family's me, I'm gonna get my own tickets, and that's what I did. I ended up watching more basketball, watching more sports, and and then I only worked on two artists at that time was Diangelove's Lady and Total Kissing You Puffy scrowl HM. Other than that, I didn't do much work for a couple few years.

01:04:36
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting to you you compared because like you compare yourself to Eddie Kendricks too, because there are some times listening to Tony Tony to that when you when you and your brother like trade vocals, it's almost like a Rough and Kendrick kind of like just the way y'all sound sometimes, you know.

01:04:51
Speaker 2: What I mean, because I always felt like, you know, sometimes I'm watching sports shows, sometimes people scream too much, like if I'm watching, if I'm watching I'm watching First Take, I call First Take First Baptist cause it sounds like church. It sounded like like tachers. They all sound like preachers. But I love the show. I love the show. And then I listened to I'll go to like, uh, it's it called uh, it's called first things or something.

01:05:22
Speaker 1: First things, first thing, first first, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:25
Speaker 2: Their voices are too high. It's just like no, and it's just irritates the hell out of me. And then let's get bayless. I can't take skips at all. But who was? No, who was on the show? I like the Skip show Wayne on the receiver. Oh you're talking about You're just blanking out on his name. That's terrible because he's my favorite guy.

01:05:49
Speaker 1: He just joined the last year.

01:05:50
Speaker 2: But I can't.

01:05:51
Speaker 1: It's great, great commentator. I can't.

01:05:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he makes Skip show good. But I'm really calling herd guy.

01:05:58
Speaker 1: You're calling her guy. I know. I can't deal with I feel about calling I like Skip. Bas reminds me like wrestling, like.

01:06:07
Speaker 2: Colin is right because you know why, because Colin got it right. Because Colin is no debating. He'll ask the question, he debates himself. No, but yeah, but when he brings he brings on great guests.

01:06:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and he doesn't if I.

01:06:20
Speaker 2: Ask you a question and then when you answer the question, he goes to the next subject. He don't debate you like that. He doesn't debate you, right, So back to me and Dwayne. Yes, I think my voice is irritating sometimes, right, So it was great to have me and Dwayne going back and forth. And that's the way I see those talk shows, those game shows. You need different people with different voices because some voice might irritate you. My voices is high and sometimes people it's it could be irritating. It's too high, it's too But when Dwayne comes in, it just levels me off and gives me the confidence. You know. It's like, I don't want to say this, but like you Michael and Michael and Jermaine, it wor right. Yeah, yeah, so those talk shows. Yeah, I think Colin is the man bro cool?

01:07:09
Speaker 1: Can I can't? Man? You like skip over? Collin skips funny to me, skip just crack. It's like, it's so ridiculous. He's like Trump almost yeah.

01:07:19
Speaker 2: But okay, but.

01:07:24
Speaker 1: Listen, you're not wrong, you're right. But here's the thing, Like, Okay, I might regret putting this on on Wax, but Trump is actually kind of funny. It's just that he's just that he's.

01:07:34
Speaker 2: Like Bush is funnier.

01:07:38
Speaker 1: Come on, they're both pretty funny.

01:07:40
Speaker 2: No, he's just Trump is just ridiculous.

01:07:43
Speaker 1: Trump. Well, you know what's ridiculous? This really ain't funny. It's kind of fun. It's in the dark way that you think about George Bush started the Iraq War, all those veterans people, Dad Main terrible and now he's just sitting there at home painting and he's good. Bro, Like what.

01:07:59
Speaker 2: Because now he's painting, Like look at this motherfucker. You guys got out? Yeah, Like, whatever choice do you have? Like most people I know, like a voting and who wants to vote Trump? If you wouldn't think and everybody want to save money on taxes, but I want to save money on taxes too. But I'm like, if that's gonna be lose the money, I.

01:08:19
Speaker 1: Would rather lose money than yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah.

01:08:21
Speaker 2: But Skip is definitely Trump.

01:08:23
Speaker 1: He is, but he's not trying to run the country. That's what I appreciate about it, you know what I mean, just trying to push.

01:08:27
Speaker 2: Comes in with a ready package, like you say something, he's gonna combat it. I feel like they have them, you could. I guess I can see their daily meetings. I'm gonna take this position, you're gonna take that one. That's why I like you, well, Colin. You know, there's a meeting, but it's only one person.

01:08:44
Speaker 1: So Colin just reminds me of the guy in the classroom that's doing too much, you know what I mean, Like he's ruining everything for you.

01:08:51
Speaker 2: It's like, you know what I like about Colin? I know how he got him the sports thing. But the funny thing about Colin I want to find out why does he hate Aaron Rodgers so much?

01:09:01
Speaker 1: That's a great question.

01:09:02
Speaker 2: It's funny though. He'll give him a break, but he'd be like, you know, he just kills him. I think I watched him so he just to watch him kill people. But he has like really, I will say this, he has really good tips for for being professional. If you listen to him. Oh yeah, definitely, like he definitely.

01:09:20
Speaker 1: Okay, you gotta I'm gonna move to Manhattan Beach. Try to try to link up with him. He maybe you can mentor me on how.

01:09:26
Speaker 2: To because look at this podcast company is Draymond Green?

01:09:32
Speaker 1: Yeah wait, no, that's it is that his?

01:09:35
Speaker 2: That's his?

01:09:35
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know that.

01:09:36
Speaker 2: Dude comes on and be like, you know he gave dream on the platform.

01:09:40
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.

01:09:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a beast man.

01:09:43
Speaker 1: He's the beach. But skip. You got stephen A. Shannon Wayne our boy who we can't think of right now. He's put people on too.

01:09:52
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, I try, like I try. I skipped my stations and I go along skip. I'm like, nah, skips like skips, just like making people mad.

01:10:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love that.

01:10:07
Speaker 2: About It's a different structure, different folks.

01:10:09
Speaker 1: That's right, That's right, that's it. I feel like I'm bouncing everywhere. But it's just like so cool.

01:10:15
Speaker 2: One more thing about skip, please more thing. His name is perfect. You should just skip his show exactly.

01:10:25
Speaker 1: That's the tack and skip me, skip skip that, just skip this Bayless man. Yeah, y'all went down to UH to record house of music. Y'all went down to Yeah.

01:10:37
Speaker 2: The house of music was the Sons and so was the Sons and Soul. Y'all do think it was Sons and so?

01:10:42
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, pre internet, Like, how did you know about this studio down and how did y'all know to.

01:10:50
Speaker 2: Get Like we found out from some of our training brothers, Trent Gums and Desmond Gums, some guys. I was in the Trent Gums. I was in a high school band with him, and he's trendy. And he told us about the studio they need, They needed people to come down there and recorded. They gave us a good they gave us a good price to come record the music. And we stayed there for three months. Wow, stayed there for three months. I think that's the first time I had row ti. This is a sad part. It's the first time I ever taste a mangle.

01:11:19
Speaker 1: Really.

01:11:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in Trinida.

01:11:23
Speaker 1: That's probably was a good mango.

01:11:24
Speaker 2: The best man who ever had my life. Wow, And it was beautiful.

01:11:27
Speaker 1: It was.

01:11:30
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful place, beautiful music, beautiful food. And we had almost five or six rooms to record in huge orchestra room. It was It was a great time.

01:11:43
Speaker 1: Was it like? That?

01:11:44
Speaker 2: Was?

01:11:44
Speaker 1: That was how many people? So it was you guys, what else did you guys go down with?

01:11:48
Speaker 2: We brought we might have brought like ten people and we left. We left. It was only maybe three people we left. Everybody wanted to leave except us.

01:11:57
Speaker 1: Wowe, it seems like an incredible Do you guys have any footage at that time?

01:12:02
Speaker 2: I don't think we filmed anything. We're the worst. We weren't the Beatles. We didn't dock how you know. See The Beatles have a documentary that came out maybe from like forty years ago.

01:12:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's like literally it's like, yeah, they're never off camera. Yeah yeah, I mean I just yeah, it's pretty I guess that makes sense that it was Sons of Soul because it feels like that's like, really there's an energy on that album, you know.

01:12:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sons of Soul was like, yeah, it was definitely a training right slow wine, Slow Wine, Yeah, slow Wine. It's beautiful. I mean, like the rainforest. It would be like just in the daytime, just to eating dinner and and just just hard rain. It's just coming down, you know because the windows are open. It's a they loved the good life out there.

01:12:51
Speaker 1: I think I wanted to ask you, just going back to Beyonce, your brother Dwayne brought Destiny's Child to Oakland like before they live up right. Yeah, So it's like did you did you like, yeah, can you tell that story if you know it? And then did you know Beyonce at that time?

01:13:08
Speaker 2: No, I didn't know. I didn't know Beyonce at that time. I actually was in La at the time, or I was in Sacramento and then I moved to La So I missed that whole thing. I wasn't around it at all. Wow, Yeah, I know. I know. He had him through another guy named Alonzo Jackson. A Lonzo Jackson is a guy we were I was in a band with two and Dwane was in a band with Lonzo Jackson's uncle. So we were sort of like the kids band to that band. And so. But there's also another lady who Lonzo matt So he he met justin shout through this lady. She ended up passing away, and then Lonzo brought the girls to Duane.

01:13:52
Speaker 1: Did you hear from him about it? Like, yeah, I got these.

01:13:55
Speaker 2: I mean he was working with a lot of people at the time, He's working with Alicia Keys. After that he had his own label. He was working a lot of people. But like I said, I wasn't around for any of it. I didn't know any of the artists.

01:14:07
Speaker 1: Do you guys get along or is that not?

01:14:09
Speaker 2: Like no, we get along, but we get along. We're just different. We're just different. And you know, I mean growing up heles my you know, my child, my I don't I wanted to be around them all the time. It was a sort of an age gap there and once you get it, once you get a record deal, everybody start having the home to the friends, you know. So and I was still enamborant with the trick that I was. I was in the business, I was making records. You know. It was like something that was really a surprise to me, you know, because I'm pretty much wanted to be like the assignment to play for people, So I was too busy figuring this out and how not to be a failure and what we said we were doing. So I pretty much you know, it was trying to you know, talk to to as many people as I could to learn a little bit more.

01:15:08
Speaker 1: There was like a five year maybe five maybe six year gap between house and music and instant vintage.

01:15:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't know because there's no gaps for me because I'm always playing music. I'm always making records, so they're just not coming out, okay.

01:15:22
Speaker 1: But so there wasn't like when you left, like this feel of urgency of like I got to get something out established myself as now you did the song for like, you know.

01:15:31
Speaker 2: For different people, it should have been some urgency, but I didn't.

01:15:34
Speaker 1: It's all worked out. I was just curious.

01:15:36
Speaker 2: No, no, it should have been some urgency, but I didn't. I wasn't. I wasn't there like that. I was like, you know, like I said, it was football, basketball, music, video games, the new guitars, watching this person do that, nieces and nephews, and I was nephew was playing, you know, don't want to play basketball, so I would, you know, fly him to Domingus from Sacramento to play in the league. But the Pump Brothers and I was sort of like helping my nieces and nephews getting good schools. And that was part of it too.

01:16:07
Speaker 1: You could have become like a sports age or something. You could have like, you know, there's a there's another there's another path you can.

01:16:15
Speaker 2: I should tell my buddy, like I told Brian one time. He wasn't doing that good. He well, his points was low, and I just went to him one day. I was like, man, so tell me something. I said. If they come to you and say, you know they're gonna fire you, I didn't. I said they're gonna fire The GM is gonna be there for a long time. You probably get fired first, like it's it's you, then it's the coach. Then it's the gym. That's how I go, right. He like yeah, he said, okay, I hear you. He went and he got like he had. He got about what hit about twenty he had about seventeen rebounds and that night and he called me, he's like, you see the game. I'm like yeah, he said, yeah, he said, I won't to hear some records.

01:17:02
Speaker 1: You're a clutch producer man. Yeah, anything, Yeah, Charlie Ray. That's on Charlie Ray. Yeah, where did that guitar part come?

01:17:10
Speaker 2: Well, it came from me trying to be in my funkadelic you know, d dum dum and it's like the Charlie Ray's dum dum m m damm doom. It's like a funkadelic dream.

01:17:45
Speaker 1: It's such a almost sounds like grateful deadish, like it's so like it's just so I don't know that anyone.

01:17:52
Speaker 2: I do have a lot of grateful dead type of music that I haven't put out, what just like instrumental stuff that yeah, yeah, yeah, I did.

01:18:01
Speaker 1: I did like it.

01:18:03
Speaker 2: So my album before I did Jimmy Lee, I had this whole other record that felt like Charlie Ray. And then I started thinking about my brother and just all this and some friends about drug addiction, and then I just jumped off and got on this whole other wave. And but I did have these records that then I'm gonna put together. It's more instrumental stuff. Vocals happened, but maybe like after two minutes in the record, what Yeah, that's what that's the stuff I love. But you know, I could do it now because I'm not I'm not really in the record I'm not. I don't think I've ever been in a record business. I think I've been a friend of the brand. That's my thing, A friend of the brand, A friend of really yeah, the friend of the brand. I got that from like New Ballats. I did this thing with somebody and instead of having an ambassadors, they have my half somebody and a commercial and it's like a friend of the brand. It's not an ambassador. When I heard that, turnos like it. Oh that that suits me just fine, because that's what I felt like I've That's what I felt like I've been and I'm a friend of the brand, which means I really really love it. Yeah, I can call myself a friend of the brand.

01:19:16
Speaker 1: Did you is that because you don't necessarily don't want to be fully in it, like because you I'm sure you could be.

01:19:23
Speaker 2: I mean, no, I think I want to be fully in it. But I just want to, you know, dip off and do regular shit, you know, and not. I don't need to have ten celebrity friends and hang out with them. You know, I don't need to be talking about celebrity friends all day. I need to just you know, I'm walking and you know I'm wanting to bite. I'm just doing things that you know, my friends are. I'm still friends with my friends from third grade.

01:19:50
Speaker 1: Damn.

01:19:51
Speaker 2: You know I still talk to them on the phone.

01:19:53
Speaker 1: Wow. You know.

01:19:55
Speaker 2: I took some of my friends lyrics and put in the song really, a song that he used to always sing. And then I haven't seen him in twenty five years. When he saw me, he's like, you sing my lyric in the song?

01:20:05
Speaker 1: Well, lyrics? What song?

01:20:09
Speaker 2: It's not called Ford to love you? I will see we stand by your like a tree. Yeah, anyone to try to move me. But he had got it from Marvin. Wow that but I didn't know. But we will be on the street hanging out. He would be like, I'll stand by your lack a tree. He always say that. So my first record, his name is Rodney. He called him. We got Rodney Smith, and he when he saw him, he was like, He's like, tell him Ray it was all our other friends. He said, tell him he already knew. I said, tell him yep, I said, I took those legs stand by you like he already knew.

01:20:48
Speaker 1: Cole busted. Yeah, tell him that. Oh man, I'm gonna circle back because this is one thing we dropped, which was we started talking about the secret track and then how did that we got off on it? Because that Larry Graham one is my my favorite, But how did that happen? When did that? Like?

01:21:06
Speaker 2: I think I started doing it doing it because I think Prince when I heard hello, how are you? It was at the end of the record, and I've heard maybe one other person do that, and I was like, I wonder if I just like let the record go off and for like a minute or two minute and a half, what it's scared the hell out of people up there in the house and the record pops. I don't want to scare people, but I just thought, like, you know this, this would be a thing that I could start and I can continue to do it. And I'm actually gonna put out some vinyl pretty soon of previous stuff, previous stuff, and I'm store like the Vinyl Club started putting on vinyl.

01:21:51
Speaker 1: Put the put the Grateful Dead project down.

01:21:54
Speaker 2: Well, now I'm definitely gonna do that.

01:21:55
Speaker 1: I'll buy that on vinyl, the gatefold define.

01:21:58
Speaker 2: I'm a vinyl head, you know.

01:21:59
Speaker 1: Man cool Well and Raphael, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, Thanks so much, Raael for havings out there. Who's beautiful Los Angeles Studio To hear some of our favorite Rafael Sadiek songs. Check out a playlist at broken Record podcast dot comic. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Marek Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Toler. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts, subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme Music's back, any beats? I'm justin Richmond,