Songoftheday 10/4/19 - Kissin' you is not enough for me, you know I'm a big boy and big boys have desires...
from the album Higher Learning (Original Soundtrack) (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12
Today's song of the day comes from R&B singer/songwriter Raphael Saadiq, who (as Raphael Wiggins) fronted the group Tony! Toni! Tone'! in the late 1980s to early 1990s. By the mid-decade they had scored five top-40 pop hits including three from their third album Sons of Soul: "(Lay Your Head On My) Pillow" and two top tens with "Anniversary" and "If I Had No Loot". In 1995, Raphael, adopting the surname Saadiq (but not for religious reasons), recorded a song for the movie Higher Learning starring Omar Epps. The college-years drama sported a diverse soundtrack, with the likes of Ice Cube and Outkast meeting Rage Against the Machine, Tori Amos, and Zhane. The first single released from the set was Raphael's "Ask Of You", which interpolated the melody from Kyu Sakamoto/A Taste Of Honey's "Sukiyaki", a song that was just was a top ten hit at the beginning of the year for vocal group 4PM. With Tim Riley and Saadiq giving co-writing credit to the writers of that song, it proved yet another success for that melody, and Raphael's biggest solo hit...
"Ask Of You" became Saadiq's sole solo top-40 pop hit in May of 1995. The song was a much biggest success in urban markets, spending two weeks at #2 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. Internationally, the single was a minor hit in the UK at #76.
Saadiq returned to Tony! Toni! Tone'! for one more album, House Of Music, before they called it a day in 1997. A year later, he was featured on the single "Can't Get Enough" from girl-group Willie Max, which rose to #20 on the R&B chart and #49 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1999, he returned with another one-off, a song for the animated TV show The PJs. "Get Involved", featuring Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, climbed to #21 on the R&B chart and #67 on the pop Hot 100 in America, and scored him a top-40 hit in the UK at #36. That same year, he formed the group Lucy Pearl with En Vogue singer Dawn Robinson and rapper Ali Shaheed Muhammed from A Tribe Called Quest. The critically heralded trio only made one album, but it was choice, and it included the top-40 pop hit "Dance Tonight".
In 2002, Raphael released his first full-length solo album Instant Vintage. Despite critical acclaim, including three Grammy nominations for Best R&B Album (which went to India.Arie's Voyage To India), the single "Be Here", which featured D'Angelo (whom he helped with his debut album) stalled at #61 on the R&B chart and down at #99 on the pop Hot 100. Nevertheless, the song got Grammy nods for Best R&B Song (losing out to himself on Erykah Badu's "Love Of My Life", which he co-wrote) and the inaugural Best Urban/Alternative Performance, which went to India.Arie's "Little Things". The Instant Vintage album reached the top ten on the R&B albums (#6) and top-40 on the all-genre (#25) albums chart, not bad for a set with no big hits.
But with the muted success, he left his label Universal to go indie. His sophomore effort, Ray Ray came in 2004, and reached the top half of the albums chart but dropped out after, failing to place on any singles chart. More involved with producing other artists, including British blue-eyed soulster Joss Stone, Saadiq returned to the big labels, signing to Columbia Records to release his third set The Way I See It in 2008. A success on the pop (#19) and R&B (#8) albums charts, the set's second single "Never Give You Up", featuring Stevie Wonder and CJ Hilton, returned him to the R&B top-40 at #26, spending a half a year on the list. That track earned him another Grammy nomination for Best Duo/Group R&B Performance (which went to Al Green and John Legend's "Stay with Me (By The Sea)", and the lead single from the set, "Love That Girl" got a nod for Best Traditional R&B Performance (which again went to Al Green for "You've Got The Love I Need" with Anthony Hamilton). The Way I See It also was up for Best R&B Album (which both he and Green lost out to Jennifer Hudson's debut record). It seriously is one of the best soul albums of the decade - search it out. I mean, he had Janelle freaking Monae open for him. In 2011, his second record for Columbia, Stone Rollin', incorporated more rock and acoustic sounds in the music; it again reached the pop albums top-20 (#14)/R&B albums top ten (#3), and one of the singles from the set, "Good Man", which peaked at #51 on the R&B chart, got a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional R&B performance, which went to Cee-Lo Green and Melanie Fiona for "Fool For You".
More recently, Saadiq received a nomination for an Academy Award for "Mighty River", the song he wrote and produced for the movie Mudbound with Mary J. Blige and Taura Stinson. His most recent album Jimmy Lee came out this past August. The first single from the set, "Something Keeps Calling" featuring guitarist Rob Bacon, is in the #3 spot on Billboard's Adult R&B Songs as of this writing, and so far has made it to #21 on the main R&B/Hip Hop Airplay chart.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
And here's the audio from Raphael's live album from the House of Blues with "Ask Of You"...
Up tomorrow: A collaborator of Raphael's is headed southward.
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