This is a pairing that will either take people by surprise
and not make a whole lot of sense initially, or you’ll totally hear what I’m
hearing and would get really excited at the prospect of a Raphael
Saadiq-produced Lenny Kravitz album.
Let’s establish each of our candidates’ credential firstly: Lenny Kravitz – certainly no
introduction would be necessary though – iconic rock performer, producer,
writer, multi-instrumentalist whose first album was released in 1989 and since
that time has released ten studio albums, not including his work for other
artists which would list collaborations with Cree Summer (for her incredible
and slept on album, ‘Street Fairie’) and Madonna, having produced her hit
‘Justify My Love’. Lenny Kravitz has
long been established as one of rock’s premier artists but the world of
R&B, soul, funk and hip-hop certainly isn’t something that’s alien to him
or his music, already with a list of collaborations that include Mary J Blige,
Jay-Z, P Diddy, The Neptunes and Swizz Beats, amongst others. In fact, Kravitz’s 2011 album ‘Black and
White America’ is very much the reason for me selecting Kravitz for this series
as this album has since been considered his long-talked about ‘funk’ album,
but, for me, despite the excellent title-track, I don’t think the album hit the
funk and soul heights that I had been expecting. It’s never really been Kravitz’s M.O. though
so I won’t hold it against him, but it has consistently made me think of who
could be the absolute best person to bring a more soul-fused approach out in
his music and the best person I could possibly think of to do that… is Raphael Saadiq.
Here’s another name that should require little introduction:
one of the most consistent, established and incredible producers within R&B
and contemporary soul music is Raphael Saadiq.
The Tony Toni Tone’ and Lucy Pearl alumni, despite having a career with
the Tony’s since 1988, only branched out as a solo artist in 2002 with his
well-received debut album, ‘Instant Vintage’ and has since followed that up
with a further three studio albums. But
Raphael Saadiq’s brand and reputation is also equally built upon his work for
other artists including ‘Lady’ and ‘How Does It Feel’ for D’Angelo, ‘Soul
Sister’ for Bilal and further production for R&B and soul acts including
The Isley Brothers, Kenny Lattimore, Kelis, Total, Anthony Hamilton, Angie
Stone, Jill Scott among countless others.
(Raphael Saadiq’s amazing production talents have in fact been
highlighted twice within our ‘GetToKnow… The Producer’ series which you can
check out here.)
Could it happen?
Well, out of all the MashUPs we’ve created, this one I’d say
has the best chance of actually coming to fruition. Sort of.
Lenny Kravitz, although he has recruited outside collaborative writers
and producers for his music, has never really relinquished complete control of
his music, and, in fairness, it would probably work better for them to
collaborate together then for one person to completely steer the project on
their own. There is something of a
common denominator between both factions that makes this that much closer a
possibility, and that’s Trombone Shorty.
Horn player and vocalist, Troy ‘Trombone Shorty’ Andrews, has been a
part of Lenny Kravitz’s touring and studio entourage as far back as 2005 and
has even cited him as his mentor – in the time since Shorty has gone on to
distinguish himself as a named artist in his own right chalking up several solo
studio albums on Verve Records with his most recent 2013 effort produced by – can you guess who…? – Raphael
Saadiq. The ‘Say That To Say This’ album
featured this Kravitz-esque guitar-heavy sound merged with funky New Orleans
soul making for a blissful listen, and it serves as the perfect example of what
a Lenny Kravitz/Raphael Saadiq collaborative album could sound like.
For our exhibits, we’ll opt for a couple of fairly obvious
choices: Exhibit A is Lenny Kravitz’s funk-filled ‘Black and White America’
with the added bonus of Trombone Shorty on trombone)…
And Exhibit B will take a slice of Trombone Shorty’s ‘Say
That To Say This’ record and the Saadiq-produced ‘Long Weekend’…
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