Raphael Saadiq: Oscars, D’Angelo Absence Explained
Among Sinners‘ record-breaking 16 Academy Award nominations, Thursday brought a nod for Best Original Song, shared by music legend Raphael Saadiq and composer Ludwig Göransson. For Saadiq, the nomination for “I Lied to You” (performed in the film by Miles Caton) comes after a brutal year – he lost his brother and Tony! Toni! Toné! co-founder D’Wayne Wiggins, as well as his good friend and collaborator D’Angelo. Saadiq spoke with Rolling Stone to discuss the song, his grieving process, and more.
2025 was a heavy year for you, now capped off by this nomination. Congratulations, and how are you doing?
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. When you meet somebody at the beginning of their career and you’re very tight and you understand each other, you just really miss them. 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 – who I am as a man, and a friend, and a brother. that’s what’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.
In the final version, “I Lied to You” brings in much of the Black music that followed, all the way up to hip-hop, and the way it’s used in the movie is really powerful. But your version was just the blues, right?
Ludwig added that part in. It was a blues song at first. [Director] Ryan Coogler and Ludwig pitched it to me and said, “Can you write the song right now?” Me and Ludwig just picked up guitars and started playing. I never read the script, so I didn’t know about the juke joint burning or the father-son relationship. I just had to go off of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Hubert Sumlin – what I knew about the blues.