September 26th 2023.
After years of success as a singer-songwriter, Raphael Saadiq finally has something to admit: he wrote the hit song "Cuff It" for someone other than Beyoncé.
The 57-year-old is going on a tour with his beloved R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! and the setlist includes classic hits like “Anniversary,” “Pretty Brown Eyes,” and “It Never Rains.”
Saadiq told Vulture that if he hadn't given the song to Queen Bey, it would have been part of the setlist. "That record was going to be a Tonyies record, the part that just sounds like [mimics the ‘Cuff It’ guitar riff]," he said. "But I gave it to a friend of mine and said, ‘I got this record. I was going to do it, but what about Beyoncé?’”
Saadiq described the vision he had for Beyoncé’s version of the song and credited super-producer The-Dream for getting it out there. “She’s one of those people where if she’s feeling it, she’s going 100 percent in. I said, ‘It’s going to move people. It’s going to work, I’m telling you.’ I think she just put it away," he said.
The soul-singing trio have Saadiq to thank for their success, as his songwriting has had a number of classics for artists like Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky,” D’Angelo’s “Untitled,” and all of the hits performed by his old group Lucy Pearl.
“I already knew it was one of them joints,” Saadiq said of “Cuff It.” He continued, “I always said, if you drop the right music on an artist, it could go, but I’m glad she has so many eyeballs on her, you know what I mean? You can’t really trick people, it’s got to be good.”
It was the first time Saadiq had written for Beyoncé, and it ended up garnering him a Grammy for Best R&B Song. “Beyoncé’s a hard worker. I told her, ‘I’ve always knew we would work together at some point.’ Like I said, it’s all about timing,” he shared.
Saadiq is an incredible talent, and it's no surprise that he wrote such a hit song. It's great to see him and his band Tony! Toni! Toné! reunite and perform some of their classic hits. Who knows, maybe we'll hear a rendition of "Cuff It" during one of their shows.
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