What Happened When Raphael Saadiq Came Home to the Town

Raphael Saadiq, one of the most accomplished musicians and songwriters of our generation, took to the stage in his hometown of Oakland last Saturday and reminded his fans that despite penning songs that are sung around the world, he too is a human being.

He has ups and downs, a sense of humor and panic attacks. He reminisces about childhood experiences; he takes smoke breaks and gets lost in his imagination. He’s survived professional pitfalls and family trauma. Hell, prior to the show at the Fox Theater that evening, his guitar was stolen. And unfortunately, earlier this year he lost his brother, former bandmate and Oakland benefactor D’Wayne Wiggins, to cancer.

On June 7, during the first of his two weekend shows titled No Bandwidth: One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits, Saadiq used every instrument on stage to highlight key moments in his life’s story. Over the course of roughly two hours Saadiq performed a sermon-like monologue, synced with sound and made to soothe the soul.

And then, at the end of the show, he used one special guitar to pay homage to his late brother.

Saadiq’s start

The slightly elevated stage had a modest setup: a piano on one side, a set of guitars on the other, with a pair of reading lights behind it all.

Moments after the theater’s lights dimmed, Saadiq appeared, pulled back the hood of his cloak and was met with a standing ovation. His hair was braided in cornrows at the top with a bald fade on the side; he wore glasses, a yellow cardigan sweater, extremely long shorts and a white shirt.

He grabbed the mic and got straight to the point: “How did I get here tonight?” he asked in a lighthearted and rhetorical fashion, adding “with no band.”

He started with his birth. “I was a mistake,” Saadiq said. Someone in the crowd instantly responded, “No you wasn’t!” (He might not’ve had a band, but it was clear from the onset that the Oakland crowd would collectively play the role of hype-man, backup dancer and supporting vocalist.)

Saadiq, born Charles Ray Wiggins at East Oakland’s Highland Hospital in 1966, came into a world of art, culture and classic cars. Inside the house, Earth, Wind And Fire’s songs were “the bar,” Saadiq said; great music was the norm. His mother, who loved the Oakland A’s and their star player, Reggie Jackson, introduced Saadiq to the Oakland Coliseum, where he’d later hear Stevie Wonder sing.

Saadiq’s dad drove an Oldsmobile and listened to the no-defunct soul music radio stations KDIA and KSOL. One day while an Al Green song was playing, a young Saadiq changed his vocal pitch along with the cadence of the song. His dad went wild. At age nine, Saadiq said he met his soul.

“Now, let me tell you about my city,” Saadiq said to the audience, moving between sitting at the piano and standing to face the crowd. Projected behind him was an image of the Oakland Boys Club, where Saadiq spent a portion of his childhood.

The audience erupted in laughter as he poetically described the color of the wrapping paper used by the old-school burger spot Kwik Way.

Saadiq dove into his educational background, traditional and otherwise. And at this point it became clear that this wasn’t a usual performance — Saadiq rarely opens himself up in this way.

One New Year’s Eve, I saw Erykah Badu spin records as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown at the Fox. Saadiq came out in another hooded cloak, played the guitar and then left without saying a word. That’s the type of person he is. So on June 7, hearing his story unfiltered — in a room full of people who’d been required to put their phones into locked cases — all I could do was stand at the bar and vigorously scribble notes on a napkin as he talked.

Saadiq comedically shared stories of an old piano teacher, Ms. Small, who’d fall asleep during his lessons. She told him he’d regret it if he quit playing the piano. Years after quitting, he picked it back up during the pandemic. He talked about his time in the Oakland Unified School District, when he was a student at the former E. Morris Cox Elementary School and then Elmhurst Middle School.

It was there, in seventh grade, that thoughts of death caused Saadiq to have a panic attack and sprint out of class. Instead of returning to school that day, he went home and practiced for a talent show — an event he won by sneaking his bass guitar out of the house and playing a trio of songs that included “Another One Bites The Dust.”

“The Black kids had never heard of Queen,” Saadiq joked from the stage, explaining how his former classmates went wild for his rendition of the bass line.

Saadiq grew as a musician, playing at Castlemont High School and then with the Gospel Hummingbirds, a local ensemble of older men. But it was through famed Oakland drummer Shiela E. that Saadiq got his first big break.

The art of collaboration

Saadiq was an employee at the UPS off Hegenberger Road in East Oakland when he auditioned for Sheila E.’s band. He got the gig and ended up in Tokyo. During a soundcheck, he was on stage singing a Prince song when the levels from the soundboard dropped and over the PA system Saadiq heard, “Well, somebody has a wonderful voice.” It was a compliment from Prince.

Success is most often a circuitous path, and that was evident in Saadiq’s retelling of his life’s story. Being recognized by Prince in the mid-1980s — at a time when the artist redefined the meaning of the color purple — was a notch under the young singer’s belt, but soon Saadiq and his bandmates would be fired in a very humbling fashion: they found blank McDonald’s applications on their tour bunks.

Nonetheless, the experience lit a fire under him and gave him an understanding of how the industry worked. He returned home, co-founded the legendary R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! with his cousin Timothy Christian Riley and brother D’Wayne Wiggins.

The rest is history.

The multiplatinum group sold millions of records, and had hits like “It Never Rains (In Southern California)” and “Feels Good.” When Saadiq played portions of the songs during the show, the audience snapped into action, singing along and dancing with him.

In a bit of a riddle, Saadiq asked, “How do bands break up?” before listing boyfriends, girlfriends, the IRS, or terrible cousins.

Soon after Saadiq started doing solo work, notably the track “Me and You” from the Boyz N The Hood soundtrack and “Ask of You” from the film Higher Learning, Tony! Toni! Toné! broke up.

Saadiq became a top-tier collaborator, writing songs like “Lady” for D’Angelo, Total’s “Kissin’ You” and much later penning “Cranes In The Sky” for Solange.

He played the song “You” after discussing “Lucifer’s Pearl,” his name for the group more widely known as Lucy Pearl. He lamented that the potential supergroup, which paired Saadiq with A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad and former En Vogue singer Dawn Robinson, was short-lived — due to what Saadiq used choice words to ultimately describe what was an issue between Robinson and the other group members.

Saadiq shared tales of professional drama, accounts of family trauma and references to financial issues. Cypress Hill’s “How I Could Just Kill a Man” soundtracked a low-point in his life, and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” provided an uplifting antidote.

And then, he turned to the audience and asked, “Any of y’all seen Sinners?”

He grabbed a felt hat and a guitar, sat center stage and tapped his left foot, using it as a metronome while playing “I Lied To You,” a soulful song he wrote for the Sinners soundtrack.

Saadiq didn’t mention his numerous works with Beyoncé, like “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM,” from the Grammy-award-winning album Cowboy Carter. Saadiq didn’t note the neighborhood classic, “Let’s Get Down” that he and his former band made with DJ Quik. And Saadiq didn’t discuss the collaboration he did with Q-Tip for Eddie Murphy’s late-1990s animated show The PJs.

But the only other voice heard on the stage that evening was a video clip from Eddie Murphy, dressed as Saul, the barbershop customer from the film Coming to America. In character, Murphy urged Saadiq to talk about the Isley Brothers. Saadiq noted Ron Isley’s influence, but emphasized the importance of Ernie Isley.

Scented memories

Saadiq’s late brother D’Wayne loved Ernie’s music. Saadiq added that D’Wayne also enjoyed partying, but he could be shy at times. During their 2023 tour, Saadiq said he had to push D’Wayne to extend his arms while standing center stage so he could bask in the attention.

After taking a moment to gather himself, Saadiq shared an intimate note about that tour. “We didn’t know D’Wayne was sick,” he said.

During one of the final visits Saadiq paid to his brother, D’Wayne set up in the bed and simply told him, “We did a lot.”

D’Wayne loved burning incense — he’d put the sticks in his guitar and even in his hair. Saadiq secretly hated how the smoke got in his eyes. He wanted to tell his big brother, “That shit ain’t fly,” but he could never muster the confidence. “Now I miss those incense,” he said on stage.

As an Isley Brothers song played, a montage of images of D’Wayne Wiggins rolled across the screen.

Saadiq then disappeared, leaving behind a guitar on a stand. Mounted atop the instrument was a lit stick of incense with smoke rising from it.