Raphael Saadiq Talks ‘Sinners,’ ‘Cowboy Carter’ and Being ‘Chosen to Raise the Bar’

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners – a Southern Gothic vampire-musical-period epic led by Michael B. Jordan – is an irrefutable juggernaut. With thousands of moviegoers clamoring for prized IMAX 70mm tickets and endless discourse across social media, Sinners is perhaps 2025’s first genuine cultural phenomenon – and the haunting Raphael Saadiq-penned “I Lied to You” sits at the center of it all. 

Performed by breakout star Miles Caton in a pivotal – and instantly viral — scene tracing the history and legacy of Black music, “I Lied to You” is, at its core, and simple acoustic guitar-and-vocal track that effortlessly conjures the spirit of 1930s Delta blues. Already a leading contender for 2026’s best original song Oscar, “I Lied to You” marks the union of Saadiq, a Grammy-winning R&B maestro and founding member of Tony! Toni! Toné!, and two-time Oscar-winning composer and longtime Coogler and Childish Gambino collaborator Ludwig Göransson. Built around a refrain Saadiq, now 58, first came up with when he was around 19 years old, the song’s journey also mirrors the timelessness of blues songwriting. 

Saadiq — who’s no stranger to scoring films, having contributed music to everything from Soul Food and Baby Boy to Empire and Love & Basketball – could pick up his second career Oscar nod for “I Lied to You.” In 2018, he earned a best original song nomination alongside Mary J. Blige and Taura Stinson for Mudbound’s “Might River,” bringing him one step closer to an EGOT. In addition to a 2021 Emmy nod, Saadiq has collected three Grammys, including a recent win for album of the year thanks to his work on Beyoncé’s culture-quaking Cowboy Carter LP, the latest addition to a catalog that champions the breadth and depth of Black music. 

“We’re the ones chosen to raise the bar – and the bar has been pretty low in a lot of different areas,” he tells Billboard of artists like himself, Beyoncé and Coogler. “Some choose to not let the bar be that low, and that’s what happened. When somebody calls your name, you go to be ready.” 

For an artist and musicologist like Saadiq, all of that hardware pales in comparison to connecting with the fans who have sustained his nearly four-decade career. At the top of the year, he launched an exclusive vinyl club for fans to peruse his legendary vault, access exclusive artwork, and enjoy quarterly releases of old and new work. On May 31, the esteemed multihyphenate will launch his No Bandwidth one-man show at New York’s iconic Apollo Theater, his first totally solo trek. 

In a wide-ranging conversation with Billboard, Raphael Saadiq talks working on Sinners and Cowboy Carter, drawing inspiration from Mike Tyson, and where he hears the blues today.

When did Ryan Coogler first approach you to contribute a song to the film? 

I think maybe a week before he went to shoot it in New Orleans [in April 2024]. He reached out to me and gave me the full scope of what the movie was about. He told me that his uncle was a blues guy and explained how the church had a problem with blues players. There was a separation. But it wasn’t that the blues players didn’t believe in God, it’s just that the blues was their church.  

It was right up my alley because that’s exactly how I grew up. Playing R&B music, I was told that I was playing the devil’s music, too, so it made sense to me. 

What was your initial reaction to the plot? 

I don’t even know if I really understood the plot completely. There’s really no way to understand it by someone telling you. You need to see it. He gave me some guidelines, and I took it from there. I was used to doing that because I worked with John Singleton a lot on some pieces – he was the one who told me I should score film. John would tell me what was happening in the scene, and that was really good practice because I didn’t really have enough time [to write “I Lied to You”]. The movie wasn’t shot. I didn’t hear [the song] until the movie came out. 

What was most unique about the Sinners process? 

The passion of the story. I have so many stories of Howlin’ Wolf, O.V. Wright, Bobby “Blue” Bland and B.B. King playing in my house growing up. This process really brought me back to my Baptist church roots. Even the humming that I’m doing on the track – I got that from Union Baptist Church. We call it devotion-type singing.  

Without seeing any of the dailies, I knew [that humming] would fit. I didn’t know how well it would fit, but it was really some kind of ancestral-pilgrimage-storm. And [Miles Caton’s] voice… oh my God! That voice is crazy. I never heard his voice, so I just wrote the song how I would sing the blues. 

They wanted me to put my demo out as well, but I felt like the movie is so amazing that when people go to DSPs – they should only hear Miles. I love his voice. 

Where do you think Sinners fits in the legacy of Black music films? 

I would say it could match The Color Purple. I would have said Superfly, but Curtis Mayfield had way too much music in there. But the way Ryan likes to work, one day, I know he’ll make a very musical shoutout to the world, like what Curtis Mayfield did with Superfly. I feel like that’s on the horizon. 

Walk me through the session in which you and Ludwig Göransson wrote “I Lied to You.” How did you capture the essence of 30s Delta blues despite using modern tech? 

In a modern time where people have a lot of outboard gear and different compressors, it doesn’t matter what you have, it’s really in the fingers. It’s in the hands. It’s in the mind of the person that’s doing it. I was playing an acoustic guitar in Ludwig’s studio, and we jammed for a second. I wrote the lyrics on the spot right there, and recorded everything that night. And then Ludwig scored the hell out of it [for the Black music history montage] – I wasn’t there for that. 

What musical touchstones from your career and catalog did you pull from to write this song? 

I’ve always had blues ideas, but I never thought I had the voice for blues. I would just sit around and make blues hooks because blues hooks are the best hooks ever. When I was younger and struggling to tell my girlfriend the truth about something, I said, “You know what would make a good blues song? They say the truth hurts, so I lied to you.” I’ve always had that.  

I had another one when I was a kid; my mom asked me to do some work, and I remember thinking, “I’m so young, with the way she’s treating me, I might as well grow a beard.” [Laughs]. I never told her that, but I sang it in my room. 

For [“I Lied to You”], I thought Sammie’s character was lying to his dad, but he wasn’t really doing that. He was telling him the truth. But [at the time], I thought he was lying, so that’s why I landed on those lines. 

What makes a real blues voice? 

You hear how Miles talks? He sound like somebody grandpa. He got that thing; he got that it factor. You gotta sound gravelly. I have to try to sing a blues song. He just gotta open up his mouth. My dad would tell me all the time — that I had to change my tone if I was gonna sing the blues. But I’m a tenor dude, I got a pretty voice. I just don’t think that I have a blues voice. I’ve gotten raspier and know how to do it now, but when I was in Tony! Toni! Toné! in the 90s – and it worked, I’m not complaining! — [my voice] was cute. Once I did my The Way I See It album, I learned how to sing and act like David Ruffin. Never had his voice, but I could mimic things. But this kid [Miles] doesn’t mimic nothing! That sound just comes out. 

What was it like when you finally saw that key scene? 

Honestly, the second time I saw it, I closed my eyes, and I prayed. I saw it for the first time with Ryan in IMAX at the premiere in Oakland. But the second time, I understood the movie even more.  I hadn’t been back in Oakland since my brother [D’Wayne Wiggins] passed about two or three weeks [before the premiere]. I had a whole lot in my mind, and I was just very grateful and thankful. 

The music from all those time periods – from the ‘30s to Parliament-Funkadelic – is all the things I grew up with. I’m not old enough to have been there with John Lee Hooker, but my father was born in 1929 and he’s from Tyler, Texas. My mother’s from Monroe and Shreveport, Louisiana. The gospel quartets I played in as a child, all those men — they all picked cotton. That was their job. So, I’m not removed; I grew up in a house with people who did that. When the movie opens up? That was probably my father. To be able to contribute music to a piece like that… it just came out. 

Did you also feel a link between Remmick’s character and predatory record execs? 

Definitely. When he said, “I want your stories…” Wow… We all make music — Black, white, Asian, etc. A lot of people are really good at it; it’s a universal thing. I know some bad players in every genre, singing, drumming, bass guitar, arranging, anything. The gift is not given to just one nationality, it’s given to all. 

But the one in Blues, we own it. The soul s—t, we own it. Nobody got us with that one. This is ours. I know this because in my car I’ll listen to everything from classical to classic rock – and I still come back to the soul station or some blues station. I think the world understands that about Black culture and Black music. It’s not like they don’t know. We put spice in the game. 

That bluesy storytelling is also present on “16 Carriages” and “Bodyguard,” two Cowboy Carter tracks you worked on. What was that moment like when they called the album’s name for best country album and album of the year? 

I’m not big on Grammys or awards, but I was that day! It felt really good. I had a nice glass of champagne and a really good time just being there. Beyoncé works so hard, it’s just crazy; when somebody works that hard, they deserve it all. I really like to work with people who can work harder than me and match my work style – and I work really hard! It’s great to see someone who has accomplished so much already – who you would think Grammys don’t mean that much to, but I’m sure they do – continue to be driven by something that’s definitely not awards. It’s something deeper. I was honored to be a part of it. 

I don’t really remember too much about working on the record, because we were just having a good time. The only thing I remember is when I played the guitar solo on “Bodyguard.” I don’t normally do guitar solos; I’d probably just call my boy Eric Gales, who plays guitar all over [Sinners]. We were going to have an eight-bar solo, and Beyoncé was like, “Nah, you can go 16.” We were in a time crunch, and I didn’t have time to call somebody, so I had to go in the room and play the solo, which I could already hear in my head. I loved that challenge. I always love passing work to great people, but this time I had to jump on it. It was fun cutting a Dirty Mind-era Prince guitar solo. 

Sinners and Cowboy Carter are two landmark works that, at times, feel in conversation with each other. How does it feel to be able to work on these projects and intertwine your own legacy with theirs? 

I love the storytelling on both Cowboy Carter and Sinners. It feels like we’re the chosen ones. I’m just in the right place at the right time. Not to sound cliché, but people can either wait for things to happen, or take the road less traveled and find other people traveling that road who don’t have the platforms to be heard. Like what Bey did on Cowboy Carter, grabbing different artists like Shaboozey. Look at him now. Look at Ryan grabbing Miles and giving him a platform.  

There’s a lot of people who don’t have a platform and probably could do it better than we’re doing it. But with these projects, we’re showing that we hear you. We hear that something real has to happen in music and film. We’re the ones chosen to raise the bar – and the bar has been pretty low in a lot of different areas. Some choose to not let the bar be that low, and that’s what happened. When somebody calls your name, you go to be ready. 

Your one man show, No Bandwidth, kicks off at the end of May. What are you most looking forward to about taking the stage by yourself? 

Looking at Neil Young’s one-man show and watching Mike Tyson’s [show] is what really made me want to do one. When I saw it years ago on HBO, I was like, “Man, Mike did a good job. I wanna do that!”  

I feel like I have some stories to share with people about my life, and [I get to play] some of my favorite songs. I’m gonna play a little bit of piano. I’m no Prince on the piano, but in the pandemic, I fell in love with the piano. I might play a couple of tunes I learned during that time. When I was a kid, I took piano, but I quit because I wanted to go play basketball and football with my friends. My teacher told me, “You’re gonna wish you kept playing,” and I knew she was telling the truth, but I was already pretty good on the bass. [Laughs]. But I’ve always written songs on piano, just never retained anything. Now, I’ve bought maybe three or four different pianos, so I took up lessons again. 

Why did now feel like the right time to open up the vault and launch your vinyl club? 

Some people may have loved some of the music that I put out, and some of their friends may have never heard it. It’s always good to be discovered. If you can be discovered twice, and be discovered on vinyl, that’s even more of a thrill for me. It also puts you in a different creative space of creating artwork, which makes them more of a collector’s item. It kind of feels like when the Grateful Dead had people going to different cities just to get different cassettes with different artwork. 

I [also] wanted to create some new vinyl with music I haven’t even made yet. I wanted to start [the vinyl club] off with some things I have in the vault. 

Where do you hear the blues today? 

I once talked to B.B. King, and I asked him, “You think more Black people should play the blues?” He said, “Let them do what they do, and we do what we do.” I think the energy came from his being okay with his huge fan base playing the blues. But I felt like more people should know about it and play it. It’s a big genre. It’s something you should always have in the vault and listen to.  

I think where it is now in the South is more like [Hampton, Va.-born soul/R&B singer] King George’s “Keep on Rollin.” That’s the blues today. Sometimes when you hear different MCs, they also sound a bit bluesy to me.  But in terms of blues guitarists, it’s more others doing it than us. That’s just how it goes. But back in the day, that Delta blues was just a whole different life, a second language.