Raphael Saadiq

Raphael Saadiq səˈdiːk born Charles Ray Wiggins May 14 1966 is an American singer songwriter multiinstrumentalist and record producer He rose to prominence as a vocalist and bassist for the RB band Tony Toni Toné which he formed with his brother DWayne and cousin Timothy Christian Riley in 1986 Initially the band went by the name Tony Toni Toné as a joke until they realised it had a nice ring to it Along with his groupwork and solo career he has produced and written songs for other RB artists including Erykah Badu DAngelo Jill Scott Stevie Wonder Beyoncé Total Earth Wind Fire Joss Stone TLC En Vogue Kelis Mary J Blige Ledisi Whitney Houston Solange Knowles and John Legend After touring with Prince Sheila E and Sheena Easton as a bassist in the mid1980s Saadiq cofounded Tony Toni Tone He went on to release four albumsWho 1988 The Revival1990 Sons of Soul 1993 and House of Music1996with the band before their indefinite hiatus Before House of Music Saadiq released his 1995 debut solo single Ask of You for the soundtrack to the John Singleton film Higher Learning He formed the music production unit the Ummah with DAngelo QTip Ali Shaheed Muhammad and J Dilla Ask of You peaked within the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and led him to briefly sign with the nowdefunct Universal Records as a solo act In 1999 he formed the supergroup Lucy Pearl with singer Dawn Robinson and Ummah cohort Ali Shaheed Muhammad the groups selftitled debut album 2000 was supported by the Hot 100 top40 single Dance Tonight and served as their only project before disbanding in 2001 Saadiq has since released five solo albums including the critically acclaimed Instant Vintage 2002 Ray Ray 2004 as well as the retrostyled The Way I See It 2008 and Stone Rollin 2011 The contemporarysounding Jimmy Lee was released in 2019 and earned Saadiq further acclaim Music critic Robert Christgau has called Saadiq the preeminent RB artist of the 90s Saadiq has won three Grammy Awards for his songwriting work out of 22 nominations as well as an Academy Award nomination two Golden Globe Award nominations and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination Outside of music Saadiq also cofounded the independent video game developer IllFonic in 2007 which has developed Friday the 13th The Game 2017 Predator Hunting Grounds 2020 and Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed 2022 among other titles Description above from the Wikipedia article Raphael Saadiq licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia