Fresh Air - Raphael Saadiq's Secret To Creative Success: 'Dare To Suck'

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Award-winning singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Raphael Saadiq talks about his process — from collaborating with Beyoncé and Solange, to his song in Sinners, to his R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! He just announced an extended tour of his one-man show, No Bandwidth: One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You have your job, but you also have a life. And you're not just one thing. Neither is the Here and Now Anytime podcast. Every weekday, we break down the biggest story of the day and something else, like a new trend everyone's talking about. It's Here and Now Anytime, a daily podcast from NPR and WBUR. This is Fresh Air, I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Raphael Siddiq, a Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer.

He just announced an extended national tour of his one-man show, No Bandwidth, One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits. It started at the Apollo Theater in Harlem with sold out performances in Los Angeles and Oakland, and now extends through the fall. With nothing more than a mic, a few instruments, and his stories, Sadiq instructed that everyone in the audience locked their phones away

as he revisited the highlights, heartbreaks, and hits that have shaped his music career. From his early days with Tony Tony Tony, to his work with Lucy Pearl, and through solo albums like Instant Vintage and Jimmy Lee. Here's a cut from his 2002 autobiographical hit Still Ray. Where something's safe through So I can see your heart For night can never come Soon enough for me

I watch the sky all day Night is where I find You and me so much. My days are filled with grief. That's why I truly give you what you need, because you love me for me. Raphael Siddique has also built a career writing and collaborating with some of the biggest names in music, including Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Solange, D'Angelo,

Earth, Wind & Fire, and Erika Badu. Most recently, he co-wrote the song, I Lied to You, for Ryan Coogler's film Sinners, a gospel blues ballad that served as the emotional centerpiece of the film, inspired by his own church roots and gospel upbringing. Rafael Siddique, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. Good to be here. No phones. A one-man show. Several hours just you locked into the audience. Why did you want the audience to put away their phones? Taking the phones away just made it so I can give people the same opportunity that I had as a young, as a shorty going to the Oakland Coliseum and watching the OJs.

I could see them walking up the stairs. I could see the lights on their shoes. I could see the lights on their amps. I paid attention to so much detail. Now when you have phones in front of you, it's sort of you see people stiff and nobody's moving in the crowd. It looks like it's robots, not really real people. So when there's no phones, I don't know, I like it. The testimonies I heard, people said, well, they got a chance to hug, kiss, dance with each other and things

that they don't do. Like it was. You see Earth, Wind & Fire, the show, you're singing, you know, you got your fist pumping, you dancing, you have your hands are free. Trying to get people a free moment. Hope they enjoyed it. You pay tribute at the concert to your brother, Dewayne Wiggins. You all co-founded Tony, Tony, Tony. He passed away earlier this year. I wanna offer my condolences first as a fan.

Thank you. Yeah. He was your Michael Jordan growing up. He taught you how to play instruments. You played a bunch of instruments for this tour by yourself and he was one of those folks that was instrumental in teaching you. Yes, he was definitely inspiring the whole time.

He was already killing it pretty much as a kid, you know, in the neighborhood. We live in two separate homes, you know. We have the same fathers, not the same mother. So we had two totally different lives when it came to what our households were like. But as far as music, he sort of showed me the way because he loved the music so much. I loved it too. He definitely was the guy like, oh, he could play bass. I told my dad, you know, like, you know, he

could play. And if you don't buy him a bass, I'm going to buy it for him. You know, he was that type of dude. Like, like always want to help. One thing that is so interesting about you, 14 siblings, 14 brothers and sisters. Well that's including my dad's family before me. So with everybody in that 14, I'm the youngest boy. Didn't there be a younger girl from the other side. But at my house, I was the youngest. So it was two girls and two boys and I was the youngest in that house. But I was born late, so I was the only one in the house the whole time. You all are so well known in Oakland, because that's where you then grew up. And one of

the things that you've been doing lately, especially over the last few years, is really revealing for us, even in this one-man show, the beautiful moments, the things that make you who you are, but also the tragedies of your 14 siblings, you've lost several of them. Now it's five now, including Dwayne. Yeah, it's five now. Yeah, it's five. It's life. I started seeing it from seven, seven years old.

My first brother was Alvie, Alvy Wiggins. Yeah, we've lost a few, but in our neighborhood, it doesn't really, I hate to say it, it's kind of normal. It's normal, but it's something that just over the last few years, you've really been sitting with and talking about publicly. This one man show, I mean, you spend a lot of time talking about those influences of your siblings who have passed away.

What is it about now that you want it to be this revealing? I've always talked about it, you know, with friends. I think for the one man show, I wanted people to know the trajectory of what? Of my life, because you know the music, you hear the music, you hear all the pretty things, and I wanted people to see and hear, you can still show some of the beautiful sides

through dark times. And it made sense to talk about it in detail, because sometimes people think they know you. And I'm like, okay, you do know me. We did grow up together through music, but here's the other side. One of those examples of something that you created that was beautiful out of tragedy was the hit song that everybody knows, everyone loves from Tony, Tony, Tony, It Never Rains in Southern California. And I want to play

a little bit of it because I was really surprised to hear that it came from a grief stricken place. Let's listen to a little. I haven't seen your face in a year I can't wait till I get there Just a kiss and a squeeze and a hug And girl you know the rest cause they tell me Ain't never been to Southern California You made sure we Ain't never been to Southern California That's my guest today, Rafael Sadeg, is part of the group Tony Tony Tony, singing his 1990 hit, It Never Rains in Southern California. That was written around the same time you lost your sister, Sarah. Yeah, it was.

It was written by Timothy Christian Riley, and he brought it to me. And we were working on it in Sausalito at the time. And I got a phone call that my sister got in a car accident, and she was on life support. So I actually went to the hospital, and they pulled her off the machine that same time I went there. And then I had to go back to the studio to finish the song.

So that's not how it came about, but that's how it got finished. Yeah. I'm really struck by you saying that of all of, that you've dealt with and experienced, you wanted to show people like a place of beauty that can come out of that grief stricken place. Having to get on the mic and sing this beautiful song

that is, it's also pretty romantic. It is like the song that kind of folks that are in new young love kind of tap into, at least I did when I was at age. I think that's just really powerful. It's kind of like the hallmark of your music. Yeah, it definitely is. It comes with a lot of influences too, from different artists.

When you're singing a slow song, sort of this love ballad, and this is our second album. So at this point, I'm just figuring out how to sing this type of record. So you're discovering things about your voice, you're discovering things about the music, how to complete it, and you're thinking about records you heard from Geoffrey Osborne to Lionel Richie and the Commodores, Earth, Wind and Fire, Switch, The Barge. I mean, you have all these different things like going through your head, all these things that you're not even sharing with the people that you're working on the song with.

Yeah, yeah. When did you find your voice? When did you know that you could sing? I found my voice probably at Union Baptist, this church on 71st Avenue in Oakland, California. I was asked to sing a song with all the tiny tots. I had to sing a song on Easter Sunday and this lady named, call her Sister Nation. She was the pastor's wife. She handed me a piece of paper and said, you're singing this song on Sunday. We got a chance to rehearse it one time and then on Sunday, you're singing. How old were you? I don't know, seven?

Yeah. And I was singing the song and people started responding when I was singing. The song was embarrassing. The words, it was this gospel song. It was like, you know, if I was naked, would I bread or meat? And my friends was like in the audience crying, laughing. But when I sang it at church, people responded like, oh, girl, yeah. And I heard it, but it more or less made me more nervous, you know, because they kept responding like I

was doing a good job. And then I didn't do it anymore. I didn't do it anymore until I played in some local bands and I would play in cover songs. I would sing, I just sung by Mr. Mr. called Broken Wings. I sang that like in the 12th grade playing bass and singing. I sang the single Life by Cameo. Those were the next songs I sang and then pretty much I didn't like being a front guy. I didn't want to be a front guy. You didn't. No, I was playing in a band where there was two other lead singers and those are just two songs that I sang in a band. And when the Tony started, ended up

singing Lil Walter and the producers, Danny and Tommy, thought that I should sing more songs and that's how I became a front guy. So it wasn't always in the plan for you to be a front guy? Oh never. I don't want to be a front guy. I didn't want to be a front guy at all. I wanted to play bass for people who sing really good and maybe be on a big tour. I mean, my dream would have been like early in my career to play for the Stones. You know, and just be gone.

You know, play for some big group that You know, and just be gone, you know, play for some big group that does stadiums and just be gone. Which you, you actually had a chance to do that. Mick Jagger asked you to play with them on the Grammys in 2011. Yeah, see, Solomon Brooks, he had passed away and they recorded one of his big songs. And I think his family, Solomon Brooksug's family, called Mick. They were really good friends and asked him what he performed for their dad on the Grammys. And Mick thought to call me to assist him.

And that was so cool because we got a chance to rehearse and play blues. He loves Harlan Wolf and Buddy Guy, Albert King, and he's a blues guy. So it was like the younger blues guy meeting another guy who was inspired by black people's music. That's so cool. I mean, I'm just thinking about your dream always to be able to play with a group like that. And then you had that dream fulfilled by them asking for you. What do you remember most about that experience? I think the best thing hanging out with Mick was we both agreed that we had more fun at rehearsal than we did at the

Grammy. Oh really? Yeah because he pulled out his harp and we played blues you know and my band took some solos they're like blues guys and so it made sense for us to like play together and really have conversations about all like blues guys. So it made sense for us to play together and really have conversations about all the blues guys I didn't get a chance to meet. The Stones actually hung out with these guys at Chess Records. I think we know we could hear the influences

of all those greats from Mick, but to hear him tell you those stories, that's pretty special. Yeah, it was what I expected because it would be like talking to my grandfather. The way he would say how the wolf was acting, that's the way my grandfather would act or that's just the way some of the older men I played with. It's those characters, you know, they're going to say what they want to say.

They're going to have a shotgun with them, you know, shotgun, shotgun, blues, you know, so he just confirmed it. You've always gravitated to music of previous generations. You're like an old soul, like in modern packaging. What is it about that older music that you feel like it's just always you tapped into? It has a feeling. It has a feeling. And the late, great Isaac Hayes told me, there's no such thing of old school. It's either you've been to school or you didn't.

Right. I was schooled. Music, the feeling of music doesn't change. So you want to get the feeling from way, way back and you want to take that feeling and inject it to something new. I didn't know that I was doing that. It's just something that I got turned out on

when I was a kid. You know, it's whatever you getnt out on when I was a kid. It's whatever you get turnt out by when you're young is what you end up being. What do you love about the bass in particular? Bass made me feel big. I was so little. I'm probably 99 pounds when I was at age. Bass has had this big sound.

I heard it on Motown records like Pride and Joy by Marvin Gaye. I didn't know what I was hearing. And later on I will find out I was listening to one of the greatest bass players of all time. All time? All time. Who was it? James Jamerson. I want to ask you about a project that you just got done completing, that we've all experienced centers. What a movie.

And you co-wrote the film's signature song, I Lied to You with Ludwig Gornson. It's performed by Miles Canton. He's got like this deep, resonant voice that feels like it's come from another time. He's so young, but he's got like this really rich voice. And that song that you co-wrote, it really serves as this emotional centerpiece

for the film. It's a pivotal moment. First off, I want to know, how did that opportunity come your way? Well, Ryan Coogler's from Oakland. I'm a huge fan of, you know, of the person that guy is. And then when this opportunity came, he called me and told me about it and told me what he was thinking about, gave me a synopsis of the film. And it was about blues

and right up my alley, you know, it's my background too. And they were about to leave to New Orleans to shoot it. And they gave me the story and I'm thinking, when you want it done? And they was like, can we do it now? So I just started playing the guitar lick and I just wrote the lyrics right there. Let's listen to a little bit of it. It might hurt you, hope you don't lose your mind Well I was just a boy, about eight years old You threw me a Bible on my Mississippi road See I love you Papa, you did all you could do

And they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you Yes I lied to you. Yes, I lied to you. I love the blues. Mmm. That was the song, I Lied to You, from the movie Sinners, which my guest today, Rafael Siddique, co-wrote. Tell me about that line, they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you. You wrote that, right?

Yeah, I did. Yeah, tell me about that line. Well, that's a little mischievous boy line. I just think about if you lied to your girlfriend, and it's like you're like, well, they say the truth hurts, so I lied to you. I didn't want to hurt truth hurts so I lied to you. I didn't want to hurt you. So I just lied.

I've always had that in my head, that concept of a song. Why? Why do you think? Yeah. Because I thought it would always be a great blues song. To take that big voice of Miles, Miles sounds like he's 60. Right? I know.

He's a young dude, like 19 or something. Right. So once Ryan told me about the movie, sort of changed the words around from what I thought I could say. Because now I'm thinking about a pastor, a father. Right, because in the storyline, it is Miles talking to his father, who's a pastor. To his dad. Right. He's not telling the truth.

About his music. He loves his dad, but he loves music. Doesn't want to hurt his dad to say, I want to go play in this club because I still love the Lord, I still love church, but dad, I got to go. Maybe I'll make it back. Is it true, I heard this, I don't know if it's true, but that you love soundtracks and scoring like you'll be at home watching a movie or a show, and then just start for yourself to think about a soundtrack

or a song that would be like the score. Yeah, if I'm watching a movie, I'll just turn the volume completely down, and I'll start scoring. I start seeing what I would do versus what they're doing. That's how I kind of learned. Wait, can you give me some examples of when you done that? So there's a, hmm. There's a movie, it's about this kid who played football

at Syracuse and Jim Brown was his mentor. And they had an Elvis Presley song in it at first and they wanted this montage to happen when this kid is traveling from the East Coast to the South. And when he reaches the South, there's all these black kids on the side with signs with his name because in the South back in the day, you could run the football all the way to the five yard line, but you couldn't punch it in for a touchdown if you're black. Right.

So not in the South. Yeah. So the black kids were like, chanting him on. They wanted him to run through and make a touchdown. So I had to turn that down and write a song over the top of that. And that was a song called Keep Marchin'. That was on the record.

This is called The Way I See It, my 60s album. And instead of me giving the song to the film, I kept it. It's the biggest licensed song I ever had. Well, there's nothing you can do. Well, there's nothing you can say. Cause everything just ain't gonna go your way. If you're feeling kinda strange and you wanna lay it down. And it's hard for you to keep your feet on solid ground.

You better keep marching on. Keep marching on. Keep marching on. You just gotta keep on. Keep marching on. Keep marching on. Keep marching on. Keep marching on.

Keep marching on. Keep marching on. Keep, keep marching on. Our guest today is Grammy Award winning musician Rafael Siddique. I'm Tanya Mosley and this is Fresh Air. When the world goes shine and the risk goes cry And the clown is wearing no makeup You got to get up and run be hard to keep up with what it all means for you, your family, and your community. The Consider This Podcast from NPR features our award-winning

journalism. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a news story and provide the context and analysis that helps you make sense of the news. We get behind the headlines. We get to the truth. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. Hi, this is Molly Seavey Nesburt, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terri Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast.

The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. I want to talk to you just a little bit about your process in writing songs for other people too. Beyonce's album Cowboy Carter won Best Country album and album of the year at the Grammys

and you produced and wrote two of the songs 16 carriages and bodyguard Congratulations. Thank you You know working with Miss Beyonce Is um, I know what hard work is and I respect people that work hard You know, you don't even have to be around them to know you could just look at the production amount of work they put into a show or when they come out with music or whatever But being in the room and working with people you really get to see like how hard they work I've heard you say you don't remember the experience

But one thing you do remember is that you guys had a lot of fun The good time is you run a lot of great people a lot of great thinkers Everybody's a thinker in the room is so it's sort of like I was at my studio for a lot of it on my own, but sometime I went to the studio where it was like five or six rooms and different people working in different studios. And you can go grab the dream out of a room, which is an amazing songwriter, producer. Any musician is on call. I would just dream up like, call this guy, call this guy. And that's how Quincy Jones would do it. You got to be able to have that book, that black book to call the right musicians. And that's why music suffers to me now. You're not making a phone call so everything sounds the same.

You're not giving different energy, different spirits, different personalities on music. You need different personalities. It's not about you, it's about everybody else and then you. That's what made great records and that's what the fun thing about Beyonce's record was. This particular song Bodyguard though, you presented thatoncé, but that wasn't necessarily the song she can choose and she chose that of yours. Yeah, that song, I was going through my drop box and I was playing songs in a room with her. She was in a room, Jay-Z was in a room, Jay and a few, some of the staff. And I was looking for a song.

I don't think the phone was even hooked up to the speakers. And I played it and I stopped it real quick because that's not the song I wanted to play. And I didn't think it was something she even liked. But she caught it in like two seconds. She goes, what's that? And I'm going, oh, that's just this idea that I had. And I played it and she's like, what are you doing with it?

And that's how it got on the record. I want to play a little bit of Bodyguard and it actually is at the point where there's like this solo guitar. Let's listen. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,, Bodyguard, written by my guest today, Rafael Siddique. That guitar at the end, that was also not planned, right? Is that you? Yeah, that's me.

She wanted a solo, B wanted a solo. And I did a solo and she was like, can we make it longer? And you never hear that from an artist in 2025, playing a guitar solo, they want it longer, but she knows her audience and she knows that is rare. And she's like, I think we could do that. We can have a 16 bar solo on this record. So that was a little bit of pressure to go back in there

and play like a 16 bar solo. Cause I would have called my boy, I would have called Eric Gales. Who is Eric Gales? Eric Gales is one of the most amazing guitar players in the world today. He's from Memphis, Delta Blues. He was the guy that's playing, he played a lot of guitar in centers. But I would have called him to play, but he was on tour. So I had to play it and it came out good. I love how you, I had to play it. Had to play it. Yeah, you had to. I like spreading it around.

Yeah. I think that like something about that, about Beyonce choosing that song where you mistakenly played it but then you're like oh and she says no what is that. I've heard you say both she and Solange because you wrote Cranes in the Sky for A Seat at the Table, her album, that they make choices like that. It's sort of like the mark of a great musician is to go outside the box, the places that aren't safe. It just made me very interested to know more about how you write these songs many many times they're for yourself and then many years later you might present them to an artist like Beyonce or Solange you can tell about just how brave they are and how far they're gonna go with it based on the choices they make on your

yeah yeah definitely I don't know I guess it's in the water in Houston that family both of them are like really particular about what they like as far as design, style, you know, staging, and you know what you can pull off. It's not a lot of artists that take those chances. They take chances. Music is about taking chances, taking risks, lasting longer than your teacher or your executives or labels or anything like that. You know, for me it's like,

what chance are you going to take if you're playing music? You have to dare to suck. And a lot of people don't do that. I don't fault people that don't do that. But when you run into people that do, you have to know, like, I'm gonna try. Myself, I'm gonna try to not be different. I'm gonna try to do something that I like first. And secondly, I hope it's the audience that likes it also. But first, I have to like it.

Have you always been like that for yourself as an artist? Dare to suck? I've always been like that. I didn't know what I was doing till I had to find the words later on through different people. You know, dare to suck came from this acting coach that I was working with one time. And she's like, you got to Dare to Suck.

And I'm like, wow, that's pretty good because I did suck at acting. So, I was like, so that's a good point. I just took that and ran with that. Then I realized in music, I did that a lot. Because you're not always gonna be good. Acting. Well I took acting class because it wasn't for acting, it was for stage. I just wanted to get a little bit past myself.

You know, I didn't want to be always thinking I was this artist, Raphael Siddiq. It's like, no, I wanted to get out that shell and just walk in a room with people where I wasn't good and where we have these different drills that we do that I was going to be pretty embarrassed to do them in front of people or read a monologue and have better people in the class, you know, way better than me. That was killing it. And I had to stand up in front of this class.

I was like, wow, we have like five minutes to learn this piece and you got to stand up in front of this class. I was like, wow, we have like five minutes to learn this piece and you got to read it in front of people, they're going to film you and then the class is going to watch it back and critique you. That was the worst thing I ever heard in my life. And I did it. I did suck, but I did it. Is there a particular lesson from that that stuck with you that you use on stage now as just a part of your act? What I learned from it is you know you have to walk out there and you know take it all in especially it really came to be a great part for my one-man show because it's just me and I have to walk out to an audience where I'm not you

know you don't hear drum roll in the beginning it's just me I open it up I say something to the audience and they're used to me coming out you know, you don't hear drum roll in the beginning. It's just me. I open it up. I say something to the audience. And they're used to me coming out, you know, ta ta ta ta ta ta, boom, you know, it's not that. This is something else. And so I think, you know, uh, I really like good acting. I'm a huge fan of like Mos Def, Jeffrey Wright, Mr. Cheeto. Don Cheeto. Don, who takes that craft really serious. So you know. Like you do with music. Like I do with music.

Denzel, you know, I used to see like Denzel like every other few days we used to work out the same boxing gym. And he's just so cool, so solid. Boxing? Yeah. You're a big boxer. No, no, I'm not a big boxer. No, I. I'm not a big boxer. No.

I love boxing. I did train boxing, but I trained it to be in shape. I did spar a little bit, but I was too old already to begin to hit my head. It's no way not to get hit in your head. But what boxing does for you, it just gives you, you don't really fight. You're not out there fighting all the time, so you just need to know how to use your hands. My dad was a boxer. Somebody would walk up to him and you just got to know you can give them a two piece

and a biscuit. You're not going to be running. If you can hit in your face, you're not going to stop fighting. Right. When did you learn that? Oh, I come from a fighting family. Yeah? Yeah, I come from a fighting family. Yeah? Yeah, I come from a fighting family, like fighting neighbors, you know, but all in fun,

you know? So I opened up a boxing gym in Modesto, California, with my nephew, Alvie Wiggins, called Charlie Ray Boxing. And it was more to get kids off the street, give them a place to go to, to be, you know, educate them about, you know about school and also how to use their hands and how to commit to something. And so it's over 30, 40 kids that go there and they train, they box, and they get out of school, they do their homework, and then they have a place to go talk to adults.

And this one kid used to be scared to walk home because people bothered him. He joined the gym and two months later, you want to ride home? He was like, no, I got this. I'm walking home. Wow. He's ready. If you're just joining us, my guest is Raphael Siddique, a Grammy award winning musician, producer and founding member of Tony Tony Tony. He's worked with artists like Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder and Solange and recently co-wrote the song I Lied to to You, for Ryan Coogler's new film, Sinners. We'll be right back after a short break.

This is Fresh Air. Raphael Siddiq, that's not your birth name. How did you come up with that name? My birth name is Charlie Ray. Charlie Ray Wiggins. I came up with the name because I had a friend named Michael Ashbery who passed now from Arizona. He moved to Oakland and we both worked at United Parcels. When we'd get off, we worked from 11 to 1. We'd get off work and we would go to a mall or something. He would tell girls his name was Raphael and

my name was Halston. I'm like, why do you lie to people? He was like, I don't wanna tell people my name. I'm like, you sell drugs or something? What's going on? And he's like, no, I just don't wanna do that. So I told him, well, I look more like a Rafael and you look more like a Halston.

And so I got an audition for Sheely and her sister, Zena, was signing everybody up and Zena didn't look at me when she asked me my name. She goes, name please. And I thought it was kind of rude. So I just said, Raphael. And I got the gig and I never changed the name. Sadik.

Sadik. I just found Raphael Sadik in in this black bookstore, in this Arabic book. And I just looked up names and I saw Sadiq. It means man of his word. I like the word. I love how Tupac's name is the sound in film, like Tupac Shakur. You know, it's like, yeah, I like Raphael Sadiq. Like, yeah, it got a ring to it.

And I used it. I went to the courthouse, swore it in, bow. I talked to my dad first. He said he was fine with it. I changed it. And that summer, I went to New York and the Wu-Tang Clan, Mr. U-God, his name Wu-Tang had a little rhyme in his record. It says, I want a super freak physique like Raphael Cedik.

So that was maybe four months after I changed it. So I was like, oh, it worked as an artist, as a front person. I ended up using it and that's how I got the name. Nicole Soule-Brianna For the youngins who don't know, how did the name Tony Tony Tony come about? How the name Tony Tony Tony came about was we, my brother used to have this really wavy hair, Dwayne. You know, we were watching the movie Untouchables, Andy Garcia, his name was Tony, and so he had that sort of hair too.

And so we took Andy Garcia's Tony name and my brother said, man, my hair looks so good. On the first day of school, my teacher will call me Tony, Tony, Tony. And we played at this wedding reception. We didn't have a record. The guy said, what's the name of the group? Where we were standing there. And I think my brother said, Tony, Tony, Tony, like joking. And when they said, Tony, Tony, Tony, like joking.

And when they said, ladies and gentlemen, ooh, ooh, wow. But if you're Italian, you know when we tell people that's Italian, they go like, yeah, Tony, Tony, Tony. Yeah. So that's how we got the name. It ended up haunting us because people, like friends that you knew from back in the day when they see you, they forget your name and they call you Tony. Right, right.

I think I came home one day after some tour my mother was like, hey Tony. Not mama. My mom called me Tony before back in the day. I was like, wow, damn, you too? Yeah. All right, Raphael, you brought a friend with you. I did. This is my limited edition Fender Telecaster. Fender was so nice to let me design my own

guitar. It's based around my Instant Vintage album cover. So the little outfit I wore, this is sort of the print. Oh, the print is there, that paisley line. Right. Yeah. Oh, the print is there, that Paisley line. I mean you say it's so nice that they allowed you to do it, but it's an honor. It's a limited series. No, it's definitely an honor, but I'm a bass player first.

So most of our friends who play guitar, we joke around like, how the hell do you get a guitar? And I'm like, you definitely deserve it more than me. I like it because as a bass player, I need this body to be against me. And this feels good against my body. And it has that... What is that when you say it has that... What is that when you say it has that? What is that?

It has that... It has that bite to it. It just bites. And so when you're writing on it, it just gives me that, it gives me that information to just keep, you know, going forward. And I know the bass is coming next. Yeah. But I love this stripe on the neck. It like when I was a kid, when I would see a guitar with this on the back of it, which was Fender. Yeah. Fender is Fender. That's a signature of Fender. That's a signature signature offender. Yeah. Tell me about the design process, how you came to design it, make these choices that

you make. Yeah. And describe what it looks like because we've got cameras, but there are also people who are going to be just hearing it. Well, I just really took the artwork from Insta Vintage and I wanted that color and I wanted this pig, it's called a pig guard. This is where you... Yeah.

It's like this pretty pig guard. I wanted that. I wanted this black stripe around the trims. I wanted this to feel like a car, like an old school car in Auckland. Like, you know, we have like candy colored Mustang, 67 Mustang or a cooler. Driving down Telegraph. Driving down Telegraph. But I wanted the headstock to be black and gold. And I think that I just really wanted to make sure that it has this really like Tony Mayden sound with this is like Rufus and Chaka Khan.

What's that? I went at that bite. And Tony Maytin is like a hero of mine who plays guitar, who played all those records on Rufus and Chaka Khan. I think he was my Maytin inspiration behind the sound of the guitar. You know, there's like an energy shift from you when you pick up that guitar. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I'm at home when I pick up the guitar, any instrument.

This is when you like, you know, a kid and you find something that you love and, you know, you love, I mean, musicians don't want to say, but you love this more, you love your girl. You have to reel it in after a while. You're like, okay, the instrument is second, and the girl is first, but you know. My guest is Raphael Siddiq, Grammy-winning musician, producer, and founding member of Tony Tony Tony.

We'll be back after a break. This is Fresh Air. Sly Stone. I want to talk to you a little bit about him. Legendary musician, just passed away, was a big influence on you. Is it true that Sly's father was your pastor? No, he wasn't. He wasn't my pastor, but we were in the same church district. It was called Kojic Church of God and Christ. And his dad was a part of that network. And he visited the church that I went to, and he preached at this church.

And I think I was playing drums, and Timothy Riley was on organ. And Sly's dad was in the pulpit preaching. And we're having this conversation while he's preaching, like,, and Sly's dad was in the pulpit preaching. And we're having this conversation while he's preaching, like, that's Sly's dad. That's Sly's dad, Sylvester. That's the OG Sylvester. That's the OG Sylvester. And he just stopped preaching and looked over at us and just said, if you ever get out there in the world, you know, be careful. Just be careful. That was his advice to you. Yeah. I mean, right on the microphone, in front of the church.

How did you interpret what he was saying? I knew exactly what he was talking about. He was saying, you know, it's just, it's a lot out there, but be careful. There's drugs out there, a lot of temptation, a lot of things that can get you into a place where you don't want to be. And then his father was saying, don't be like Sly in a preacher type of way. But every preacher was like that, you know, but Sly is the, I don't even want to say goat. That doesn't even do him justice. He was definitely an inspiration for everybody.

He was like Steph Curry. He changed the game of music completely. And I know that because I talked to the late-grade Maurice White and we hung out a lot. I said, so so man, who were you trying to, what was your inspiration? And he said, man, you know what? I was really just trying to be like the, from the, you know, the boys up your way. I'm like, who? Sly. Then I was listening, when I listened to Earth and Fire, I could hear it, how his inflections on his word, some of the words he used and how he sings.

And then I start thinking everybody was really trying to be like Sly. He's an amazing songwriter. He's an amazing piano player, organ player. And he was smart, brilliant, intelligent. He was an intellectual guy. He understood theory, even though he just got, he had the God given gift. Yeah, it like permeates just like his influence, it seems like. Yeah, he's a man when you go listen to like, In Time and Have Fun in the Summertime and I mean, anything that he did, I don't even think he needed a band most of the time. I would have loved to hear him just sing and play. That voice

is like... I felt like he sounded a lot like Ray Charles. Yeah, I feel like he was inspired by Ray Charles a lot. Nicole Soule-Morris Stone Rolling, that song of yours, was that a tribute to him? This is tripped to a... more like Memphis. Memphis. Memphis Soul or Memphis Souls. Definitely, yeah, that's the Stax Records. Oldest Red and now Green. Those boys, nobody did it like them, you know, the first lyric, you know, fat lady shaking,

back bone breaking. You know, the first lyric, you know, fat lady shaking, back bone breaking. That's a blues line. But that record, there were songs I did that sound like, Honey, You're a Dash was more of a slide thing or a heart attack Don't you bet That was definitely a slide thing, 100%. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Rafael Siddique, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you.

Rafael Siddique is a Grammy Award winning musician and producer. His one man show, No Bandwidth, One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits, will continue touring the country this fall. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, author and poet, Leila Motley. She earned critical acclaim a few years ago at Just 19 for her New York Times bestselling debut novel Nightcrawling. Now she's back with a new novel that follows three young women as they navigate what it means to be a mother today when reproductive rights are being rolled

back across the country. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPRFreshAir. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challener, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper.

Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.