With an Academy Award for Best Original Song hanging in the balance, Grammy Award-winning musician Raphael Saadiq has plenty to talk about—and even more to be grateful for.
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“This is crazy.”
Despite the former Tony! Toni! Toné! frontman’s claims that “It Never Rains in Southern California,” on an uncharacteristically dreary morning, the clouds bearing down on Los Angeles are doing exactly that. Undeterred, he offers a mea culpa:
“It doesn’t rain, it like—storms here. Lucky I wore some boots though.”
If his calm demeanor in the midst of chaos comes as a surprise, it shouldn’t. With Ryan Coogler’s Sinners taking Hollywood by—well—storm during awards season, Saadiq’s lone contribution to its soundtrack, the spellbinding “I Lied to You,” is up against Diane Warren, KPop Demon Hunters, and others vying for Best Original Song at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards.
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It’s the type of sonic immortality that, after nearly 40 years in this business, honestly feels inevitable.
So, in between flash flood warnings and accolades for his executive production work on Brent Faiyaz’s latest album, Saadiq and I discussed all things Sinners, the tragic loss of his “brother” D’Angelo, and how his grandmother instilled in him the importance of Black History Month.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Jay Connor:Sinners is easily one of the most culturally profound movies in recent memory—if not ever. How did you become involved in such an impactful project?
Raphael Saadiq: I got a phone call from Ryan Coogler. We’re both from the Bay Area, both born and raised in Oakland. We never met in person, but we knew of each other. I also got a call from [Grammy Award-winning composer] Ludwig Göransson, who scored the movie. They invited me over and gave me a rundown.
Connor: Ludwig is a beast.
Yeah, he’s a beast.
Connor: He’s no joke. And with him using blues as the lifeblood of this soundtrack, what was the creative process like with “I Lied to You”?
I spoke to Ryan [Coogler] on FaceTime as he was getting ready to start shooting. He told me the history of his uncle, who was really into blues. His uncle gave him the history of the relationship between the blues and church, and the complications that blues players faced: that if you played the blues, you were going to hell. So there was this tug-of-war between church and the blues. I knew that story all too well, growing up in Oakland around a lot of Pentecostal, Church of God in Christ—people like Sly of Sly and the Family Stone. His dad, Sylvestor Sr., was a pastor. He would come to our church and preach sometimes. He’d see us playing music, and he’d look at us like, “Don’t get out there in the world and get turned out.” So I lived Preacher Boy’s story.
Connor: Oh, wow.
So once Ryan gave me his uncle’s interpretation of that, we got off the phone, and Ludwig and I grabbed our guitars and jammed for an hour. We came up with the main guitar licks, then off the top of my head, I just started singing the lyrics. It just sort of came out.
The way Ryan explained what he wanted to me, it made me think about blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf—just to name a few. That’s what I was pulling from. That was my inspiration. And I guess the ancestors came down because it fit the film so perfectly. Just that lyric, “I lied to you.” I don’t even know why I said it, but it matched the film. It had to be something spiritual that happened, because the kid who was singing it, Miles Caton, he has this big voice—
Connor: Yeah, his voice is crazy. He sounds like a grown-a** man.
And he’s a young dude! Like 20 years old. I could never sound like that.
Connor: He was the missing ingredient that made that song so mesmerizing. Were there any other influences you drew from—aside from Muddy Waters and some of the others you mentioned—in the song’s creation?
And he’s a young dude! Like 20 years old. I could never sound like that.
