Raphael Saddiq
The Way I See It
Columbia Records
By Eavvon O'Neal
Soul was a great point in music, there’s no question. I remember growing up listening to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, men who moved me toward Marvin and Al, who were steps away from Bobby Womack and Bill Withers. These dudes embodied great power, style, and sex—lots of secret sex that I wasn’t totally allowed to understand, but which became apparent through watching how people reacted to their music and words. Men walked a little looser and women seemed to speak with poutier, fuller lips, which is saying a lot for growing up in a black community.
These images always come flooding back when I listen to soul tunes now, crooning along in my best ‘60s swagger. Listening to its rebirth now, I get the extent of its power. But also I have to stop and question what the fuck is up. This questioning began with Jamie Lidell’s Jim and is now coming back with Raphael Saadiq’s The Way I See It.
We all love soul music for the same reason anyone loves any throwback: nostalgia. We all remember the times when we felt safe or were growing up; the bad times fade away but the good times are forever. Lidell has been working at developing this faux simile (a musical flashback to a genre that no longer only resides in “pop”) and turning it into a melodic reality for the duration of his career. He has prevented tracks like “Another Day” and “A Little Bit of Feel Good” from sounding camp because he has devoted his heart and, well, soul. There’s more to Jamie, but that’s another conversation. Raphael Saadiq has concentrated his time on Soul’s high gloss descendent: R&B (or Neo Soul if you really want to argue) with interesting results.
From Tony! Toni! Toné! to Lucy Pearl, to his solo career, Saadiq has been all over the spectrum from baby-making to “sweat and groan” grown folks music. When I first listened to the Instant Vintage album in high school my other friends thought it was just as weird as when I started listening to Maxwell in the fifth grade. Saadiq’s emphasis on vocal melodies atop intricate guitar melodies captivated me. It made me hopeful of being able to someday progress to the “lay your head on my pillow” mentality, like grown women in the stylish manner once reserved for pimps, but less violent and assuming. With The Way I See It, Saadiq has this same personal projection but looks back to those he admired when he was young. The album opening “Sure Hope You Mean It” explodes with Motown-like fervor, as Raphael seems to have a conversation with the genre the album is dedicated to: “Do you mean what you say, when you say that you love me?” Soul music asks, to which Saadiq answers, “With all honesty, I think I love you.” It’s this first 30 seconds of heartfelt pleading that sells this track, and it’s the sincerity that carries through. “100 Yard Dash,” which couldn’t sound more authentic if it were recorded in the Stax studio with Jerry Butler, complements the opener and adds a heavier bass dynamic to the album, which anchors through the muffled drum kit tone that became popular in Philadelphia in the late 60’s and 70’s. “Just One Kiss” features Joss Stone “ooooo’s” like in Ray, Goodman, and Brown’s “Special Lady.” Raphael doesn’t really want the kiss, though, he just enjoys toying with the concept of the ideal kiss that started his relationship. Being in love with love is supposed to define soul, right?
I’m not saying this to seem stodgy or cynical, but I tread softly because every time we (and I generalize) build something up, the end result is seldom as good as the dream. Luckily the second half of the album is just as strong as the first. The chorus of “Staying In Love” warns that “falling in love can be easy, but staying in love is too tricky,” and the disenchanted nature of the song doesn’t seem to belabor that fact, but celebrates it, like a New Orleans funeral march. We can’t hold on to anything forever, so partying in the name of good times is our only viable option. Similarly, “Lets Take A Walk,” drives at further establishing the tongue-in-cheek pulse of the album, in part by its heard-It-through-the-grapevine-like congas clopping beneath cool organs and it’s background “ooo’s.
The closest Saadiq gets to the soul idea is with “Never Give You Up,” featuring Stevie Wonder and CJ Hilton. It’s a slow adult groove that is unabashedly sensual yet respectful. As a song it’s a lady in the streets and freak in the…well, yea. The track builds tension right up to the last 40 seconds of the song, after Stevie’s harmonica soul-o, and then fades out like memories from a drunken night. To recover from this song, “Sometimes” comes along, which has a more updated sound with muffled 808’s laying behind a very visible, yet not distracting snare. It is the best come down from an emotional rollercoaster (of love, say what?!). One weird step in the end of the album is the bonus remix of the album’s “Oh Girl” featuring Jay-z. I mean Jay has as strong a foothold in R&B as T-pain, but sometimes he comes off a little too forced: what sounds like, “Oh girl, you know I’m liable to spiral no telling what I will do when left alone with my maniacal mind” crumbles at the end, flubs into oblivion and distracts from the value of whatever phantom destiny this wonderful woman is offering. Still even with that it’s hard not to fall a little in love with the huffed sincerity that rests at the core of the lyrics.
At the end of the time you spend with this album, whether it is days, months or decades, its ability to wane in strength is doubtful. Its connection to its roots is as clear as hip-hop’s to funk. As grossly heartfelt as it is, it’s based on an obsession that may have very well started at conception. It’s in Saadiq’s DNA, so its only right that he adds his name to the annals of soul and gives up the ghost.
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