![]() ![]() In some ways, one can conclude that it’s the band’s extroverted diatribe to the public’s soured assumptions of where they would venture, shortly after the unexpected crossover success of The Revival. A slamming fusion of new jack swing and southern soul, the song features bluesy guitar licks and clever samples from Boogie Down Productions’ “Remix for P is Free” and Ice Cube’s “The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit.” While the interpolated Ice Cube line: “and you can new jack swing on my nuts,” comically correlates to the subject matter of the song, there’s no coincidence it ignites the sonic palette of this album. “If I Had No Loot” kicks off the album, with a peppy, lithe voiced Saadiq crooning on the deceit and unfaithfulness of fair-weathered friends. Never before had the band sounded confidently original and dazzling all at once. The wry humor and sweet sentimentality that stood as the distinctive trademarks in their craft reached a fever pitch. The trio refined their own Oakland funk vision, bringing live instrumentation to the forefront and bum-rushing all musical cylinders with ease. In crafting this kaleidoscopic masterpiece that paid respectful homage to several of their old and new influences, they constituted classic soul of the past with sultry currents of the present. The grueling, yet fruitful experimentation that spawned Sons of Soul marked an artistic reawakening for Tony! Toni! Toné!, as they eschewed their earlier experiments with new jack swing and rose as preeminent modern-day funk and soul bohemians. We go back to the days when it was taken seriously.” Our music is more the older-style R-and-B. “We call what we do ‘soul R-and-B.’ Just saying ‘R-and-B’ gives the impression that it’s watered down. “We don’t dislike the term, but it’s used kind of wrong,” Saadiq remarked during a 1993 New York Times interview. The Tonies opted to pivot from these shifts and dub themselves as a soul outfit, going so far as to denounce their association with contemporary clichés in R&B. Suddenly as the ‘90s dawned, the black music climate slowly fell out of favor with glossy new jack swing sensibilities and embraced the grittier modes of a new subgenre hybrid coined “hip-hop soul.” West Coast hip-hop moved to the mainstream and East Coast hip-hop muscled throughout the music landscape. ![]() They also managed to cut decent songs for notable film soundtracks- Boyz N the Hood (“Just Me and You”), House Party 2 (“House Party (I Don’t Know What You Came to Do)”), and Poetic Justice (“Waiting on You”)-that were stylistically evocative of The Revival’s straitlaced R&B zest. In the interim of 1991 to 1992, the band rode the success of The Revival, touring in support of the album. The band’s former collaborators Foster & McElroy were long out of the picture, too. The Tonies weren’t entirely prepared either, as they hastily jumped from studio to studio throughout California, and then mysteriously skirted out of the States to the tropics of Trinidad and Tobago to refocus their energies on the album. Balancing high-powered party anthems (“Feels Good,” “The Blues,” and “Oakland Stroke”) with airy, quiet storm-laden balladry (“Whatever You Want,” “It Never Rains (In Southern California),” and “I Care”), the album gave the band their first taste of artistic independence (they produced all but two songs) and crossover appeal.īut the Bay Area’s first family was still ripe for respect and ingenuity.īy all means, nothing could prepare anyone for what their long-awaited follow-up to The Revival would entail. Ironing out the tentative kinks of their debut, the band refined the confinements set by those from the flashy new jack swing generation, while strengthening their lyrical and production prowess. They went back to the drawing board and came up with 1990’s The Revival. Their streamlined approach just wasn’t primed for its time. It wasn’t that their agenda of crossing the past and future realms of soul music didn’t have merit. When their debut album Who? arrived to an unsuspecting public in 1988, it was a promising, yet inconspicuous start for them. In fact, they often cringed at the word retro itself. Ray Wiggins (famously known today as Raphael Saadiq), his brother D’Wayne, and their cousin Timothy Christian Riley never dug anyone who classified Tony! Toni! Toné! as a pastiche band. ![]()
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