Raphael Saadiq opened up about dealing with the loss of his brother D’Wayne Wiggins and D’Angelo.
During an interview with Vibe, Saadiq shared his grief journey, and creating music has been a healing experience.
“It’s still affecting me a lot. I had a dream about my brother this morning. Losing my brother and also my good friend Michael Archer, D’Angelo — it put a battery in my back. It’s sometimes hard for me to listen to D’Angelo’s music,” Saddiq said.
“When you meet somebody at the beginning of their career, and you’re very tight. You understand each other, you just really miss them,” he said. “I feel like I am talking to them through spirit and energy. Working on all this stuff has been the sweeter part, making it all make sense.”
Saadiq Is Nominated For An Oscar
Saadiq, who co-wrote and produced the song “I Lied to You” for Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners, earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. He spoke about the creative process of the song.
“Who I am as a man, a friend, and a brother. That’s prepared me to work on Sinners. To work with Ludwig and Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan. I’ve always been a team player,” he said.
“Ryan explained his [bluesman] uncle to me. People looked down on blues players, but the blues were these men’s church. They got a bad rap. That connected to me — in my neighborhood, the church told me I was going to hell for singing secular music.”
“My dad said, ‘The key of E-flat in the blues is the same E-flat they play at church.’ That set me free. I’ve always had it in my music. And I’ ve never made a song that didn’t have some type of blues in it. And this showed me that respecting the history of all types of music pays off. That the Academy acknowledged a blues song — win, lose, or draw, that’s amazing to me.”