Ray Ray by Raphael Saadiq

Raphael Saadiq has never been one to walk the safe, highly traveled R&B roads. While his compositions, dating back to his days leading the successful trio Tony Toni Tone, have always been of the smoothly palatable R&B variety, they have certainly been somewhat unorthodox, and there has always been a Prince-like unpredictability to Saadiq's career. In 2004, Saadiq followed a solo debut (which snatched multiple Grammy nominations) and a 2003 live record with a concept-album homage to Blaxploitation films of the 1970s. AS RAY RAY opens with a perfectly true-to-form audio "trailer," which fades into the groove-funk introduction to the lead character, "Ray Ray Theme." A wandering guitar enhances the ethereally beautiful ballad "I Know Shuggie Otis," and, on "Detroit Girl," Saadiq breaks with his Ray Ray character and throws in music that recalls the decades in between the '70s and early 2000s. Saadiq also cleverly brings together all of his musical projects, as Tony Toni Tone and Lucy Pearl join together on t... Minimize