"Still, for me, the best promotion is going out playing your record," he tells me. "You know I'm not like a Top 40 teeny bop pop act that's gonna be here tomorrow then gone in three months...Most acts that come out right now have a new deal - I'll be around after they'll be done. [They'll be] be out for a year and a half... Since I've been out I can't tell you how many groups came out and they're gone. So I like to take the back road, it's a better road for me."
Implying lukewarm promotion for his project, Saadiq explains, "I was kinda inherited through Columbia in the States. A friend of mine he signed me but he got released and he works at Def Jam now...When you're inherited nobody really wants to touch it because they don't want to be responsible for it - but people started talking about it and it's starting to form a life of it's own."
"The response has been huge, it's good, people really like it...The people are championing the record more than the labels are, actually. It's kinda cool... I'm really the people's artist right now. I kinda like it like that. The label have to catch on later."
The vastly respected songwriter, producer and musician from Oakland, California continues, "But I do think this record has those type of legs where RCA (Columbia in the States) will get a hint and figure out what to do with this type of project - because they haven't seen anything like this. They have to figure out which way to take it and the only way to know is getting a response from the people and then see which way to take it, marketing-wise."
"I'm not really upset about that, it's just they don't really know how to take it. I watch people buy tickets and come to shows and [it is] those people they have to listen to."
Not that ‘retro' sounds and styling haven't been a recent mainstream trend (think of the recent offerings from Amy Winehouse or Duffy ), but Saadiq views the soulful ‘60s and ‘70s sounds expressed on The Way I See It as something that has always been embedded in his personal and musical history. "I've already been there. Retro's if you've never done it before and you're trying to go back and revisit it - but I've played for a lot of people that even Motown people would have been inspired by...so it's kind of like second nature for me to do it. It's just been a part of my history forever. You know, Motown, Stax... in some of the records you'll hear hints of it in everything I do."
Diverging from the subject of music extracts polite but succinct answers, Saadiq all the while exuding paradoxically reticent warmth. This reserve must explain why little is publicly known about his personality and private life, I suggest. "No..."
Reserved, polite and intriguing, he peers back at me through thick black frames in the darkly lit backroom of Sony's spacious London offices. "I think it's because, I don't really go places where people can find out about you; I kind of stay close to where I live and where I work at."
"If you were around there you'd see me do everything. If you went to the pubs that I go to you'd see me doing everything. But in Hollywood, I don't really go where tabloids are hanging out. People go to places like that and know where the tabloids are gonna be, they eat at those places, they hang around and talk to celebrities. But I don't really hang around celebrities, I just hang around regular people and the media don't go to regular places."
"[Therefore, people] wouldn't know anything. They wouldn't know what kind of house I have, what my girlfriend looks like, how long I was with my girlfriend, or what chicks I hook up with often... they wouldn't know. It's not like I choose to [be private], I'm not trying to be secretive. It's not important [to the press] if it's not a celebrity though - in my business, everything is celebrity driven. People don't really care if you're not trying to be the hot Hollywood couple so that's why it never really comes up like that I don't think."
At this point, the subject of Joss Stone inevitably enters our conversation. After that risqué album artwork (Introducing Joss Stone, 2007) and wide speculation about the nature of their relationship, has Saadiq been put off engaging in public relationships? "With a girl like her, yeah definitely. Because you can't go nowhere with her. Every time you go out it'd be like cameras."
He laughs quietly, "We took a picture together on [her] album cover and then we took a picture coming out of a show in London one time and everyone was like ‘Oh my god!' It didn't put me off, it was kinda funny actually... ‘cause I'm never seen like that. It kinda freaked me out a little bit though..."
22-year old Grammy Award-winning Joss from Devon features on The Way I See It, her previous album having been produced by Saadiq. Professionally, he only has admirable things to say about her - "I would say Joss Stone is probably one of the hardest working people. She's a maniac. She's fucking crazy. She works all day recording, film, emailing people back, talking to management, it's just like sickening."
With a smile he says, "I work all day," revealing his own intense self-imposed scheduling. "I have my little social things I do - have a little spliff during work, before work, after work - stop round 12, have a drink at the pub, go back, come home two or three [am], get up in the morning, go work out, go box a bit, do the same thing next day." It's a wonder Raphael Saadiq has any time for romantic relationships at all.
The Way I See It is out now on Sony, with the single '100 Yard Dash' is out on 26 April.
Following his two sold out shows at Jazz Café in December, Raphael Saadiq returns to London on Monday 27 April, to perform at the Indigo 02.
