25 Facts About Raphael Saadiq

Raphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer.

Raphael Saadiq has since released five solo albums, including the critically acclaimed Instant Vintage, Ray Ray, critically acclaimed retro-styled The Way I See It and Stone Rollin'.

Raphael 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, Raphael Saadiq co-founded the independent video game developer IllFonic in 2007, which has developed Friday the 13th: The Game, Predator: Hunting Grounds and Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, among other titles.

Raphael Saadiq was born in Oakland, California, and was the second-youngest of 14 siblings.

Raphael Saadiq has had four siblings die at early ages.

Raphael Saadiq has been playing the bass guitar since the age of six, and first began singing at age nine in a local gospel group.

At the audition, he chose the name "Raphael Saadiq", and had difficulty remembering to respond to the name when he heard that he got the part to play bass in the band.

Raphael Saadiq recorded the self-titled album with Dawn Robinson and Ali Shaheed Muhammad.

In 2002, Raphael Saadiq founded his own record label, Pookie Entertainment.

Raphael Saadiq released a two-disc live album All the Hits at the House of Blues in 2003, and his second studio album Ray Ray in 2004, both on Pookie Entertainment.

In 2004, Raphael Saadiq produced a remix of the song "Crooked Nigga Too" by Tupac Shakur, which is featured on the album Loyal to the Game.

In 2007, Raphael Saadiq produced Introducing Joss Stone, the third album of British soul singer Joss Stone.

Raphael Saadiq has been touring Europe extensively, and held a five-night residency at the House of Blues in Tokyo, Japan, in June 2009.

Raphael Saadiq produced songs for LeToya Luckett's forthcoming second album Lady Love, released August 2009.

Raphael Saadiq was the executive producer for an emerging group called Tha Boogie.

In 2009, Raphael Saadiq announced his video game development company called IllFonic.

That same year, Raphael Saadiq performed The Spinners hit "It's A Shame" in a legendary Levi's commercial and sang as part of the chorus in the 2010 remake of "We Are the World" for Haiti.

The band that accompanied the performance was Raphael Saadiq's touring band called Stone Rollin.

Raphael Saadiq is a featured bass guitar player on Elton John's 2013 album, The Diving Board.

Raphael Saadiq guest starred in Luke Cage, where he performs his songs "Good Man" and "Angel" at Harlem's Paradise.

In 2017, Saadiq collaborated with Mary J Blige as a songwriter for the movie Mudbound, for which they both received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song.

In 2022, Raphael Saadiq was credited as a collaborator on multiple songs from Brent Faiyaz's album Wasteland, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart.

Raphael Saadiq collaborated with Beyonce on her seventh and eighth studio albums Renaissance, for which he received two Grammy award nominations, and 2024's Cowboy Carter.

In 2024, Fender announced a collaboration with Raphael Saadiq to produce a signature guitar model he designed to be available for purchase.