Raphael Saadiq Talks Working With Beyonce
Klaudia//July 13, 2025
Raphael Saadiq talked to NPR about working with Beyonce on “Cowboy Carter”. Read the inteview transcript below.
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley. And my guest today is Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Raphael Saadiq. He’s recently been performing a one-man show, No Bandwidth: One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits, and just announced a national tour of the show for this fall. Saadiq began playing bass at the age of 6, inspired by the sound of Motown. That early passion launched a decades-long career making his own music and working with artists like Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Solange, Earth Wind & Fire and Erykah Badu.
I want to talk to you just a little bit about your process in writing songs for other people, too. Beyonce’s album “Cowboy Carter” won Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the Grammys. And you produced and wrote two of the songs, “16 Carriages” and “Bodyguard.” Congratulations.
SAADIQ: Thank you. You know, working with Miss Beyonce is – I know what hard work is. And I respect people that work hard, you know? You don’t even have to be around them to know. You could just look at the production, amount of work they put into a show or when they come out with music or whatever. But being in the room and working with people, you really get to see, like, how hard they work.
MOSLEY: I’ve heard you say you don’t remember the experience, but one thing you do remember is that you guys had a lot of fun.
SAADIQ: The good time is you’re around a lot of great people, a lot of great thinkers. Everybody’s a thinker in the room. It’s sort of like I was at my studio for a lot of it on my own. But sometimes I went to the studio where it was like five or six rooms and different people working in different studios. And you can go grab, you know, The-Dream out of a room, which is an amazing songwriter, producer. Any musician is on call. I would just dream up like, call this guy, call this guy.
And that’s how Quincy Jones would do it. You got to be able to have that book, that black book to call the right musicians. And that’s why music suffers to me now. You’re not making a phone call, so everything sounds the same. You’re not giving different energy, different spirits, different personalities on music. You need different personalities. It’s not about you. It’s about everybody else and then you. That’s what makes great records. And that’s what the fun thing about Beyonce’s record was.
MOSLEY: This particular song, “Bodyguard,” though, you presented that to Beyonce. But that wasn’t necessarily the song. She can choose, and she chose that of yours.
SAADIQ: Yeah, that song, I was going through my Dropbox. And I was playing songs in a room with her. She was in the room. Jay-Z was in the room, Jay, and some of the staff. And I was looking for a song. I don’t think the phone was even hooked up to the speakers. And I played it, and I stopped it real quick because that’s not the song I wanted to play. And I didn’t think it was something she even liked. But she caught it in, like, two seconds. She goes, what’s that? And I’m going, oh, that’s just this idea that I had. And I played it, and she’s like, what are you doing with it? And that’s how it got on the record.
MOSLEY: I want to play a little bit of “Bodyguard.” And it actually is at the point where there’s, like, this solo guitar. Let’s listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BODYGUARD”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) Oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I could be your bodyguard. Please, let me be your Kevlar. Baby, let me be your lifeguard. Would you let me ride shotgun, shotgun? Oh.
MOSLEY: That was Beyonce singing her award-winning song “Bodyguard,” written by my guest today, Raphael Saadiq. That guitar at the end, that was also not planned, right? Is that you?
SAADIQ: Yeah, that’s me. Yeah.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
SAADIQ: She wanted a solo. Bey wanted a solo. And I did a solo. And she was like, can we make it longer? And you never hear that from an artist in 2025 – playing a guitar solo, they want it longer. But she knows her audience, and she knows that is rare. And she’s like, I think we could do that. We can have a 16-bar solo on this record. So that was a little bit of pressure, to go back in there and play, like, a 16-bar solo.
MOSLEY: (Laughter) Yeah.
SAADIQ: Because I would’ve called my boy. I would’ve called Eric Gales.
MOSLEY: Who is Eric Gales?
SAADIQ: Eric Gales is one of the most amazing guitar players in the world today. He’s from Memphis, Delta blues. He was the guy that’s playing – he played a lot of guitar in “Sinners.” But I would’ve called him…
MOSLEY: Yeah.
SAADIQ: …To play, but he was on tour, so I had to play it. And it came out good.
MOSLEY: I love how you – I had to play it.
SAADIQ: I had to play it.
MOSLEY: You had to.
SAADIQ: I like spreading it around.
MOSLEY: Yep. I think that, like, something about that, about Beyonce choosing that song where you mistakenly played it – but then you’re like, oh. And she says, no, what is that? I’ve heard you say both she and Solange – because you wrote “Cranes In The Sky” for “A Seat At The Table,” her album – that they make choices like that. It’s sort of like the mark of a great musician is to go outside the box, the places that aren’t safe. It just made me very interested to know more about how you write these songs. Many times, they’re for yourself. And then many years later, you might present them to an artist like Beyonce or Solange. You can tell about just how brave they are and how far they’re going to go with it based on the choices they make on your selections.
SAADIQ: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I don’t know. I guess it’s in the water in Houston. That family, both of them are, like, really particular about what they like as far as design, style, you know, staging. And you know what you can pull off. And it’s not a lot of artists that take those chances. They take chances. And music is about taking chances, taking risks, lasting longer than your teacher or your executives or labels or anything like that.
You know, for me it’s like, what chance are you going to take if you’re playing music? You have to be – you have to dare to suck, and a lot of people don’t do that. I don’t fault people that don’t do that. But when you run into people that do, you have to know, like, I’m going to try myself. I’m going to try to, not be different – I’m going to try to do something that I like first. And secondly, I hope it’s the audience that likes it also. But first I have to like it.
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley. And my guest today is Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Raphael Saadiq. He’s recently been performing a one-man show, No Bandwidth: One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits, and just announced a national tour of the show for this fall. Saadiq began playing bass at the age of 6, inspired by the sound of Motown. That early passion launched a decades-long career making his own music and working with artists like Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Solange, Earth Wind & Fire and Erykah Badu.
I want to talk to you just a little bit about your process in writing songs for other people, too. Beyonce’s album “Cowboy Carter” won Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the Grammys. And you produced and wrote two of the songs, “16 Carriages” and “Bodyguard.” Congratulations.
SAADIQ: Thank you. You know, working with Miss Beyonce is – I know what hard work is. And I respect people that work hard, you know? You don’t even have to be around them to know. You could just look at the production, amount of work they put into a show or when they come out with music or whatever. But being in the room and working with people, you really get to see, like, how hard they work.
MOSLEY: I’ve heard you say you don’t remember the experience, but one thing you do remember is that you guys had a lot of fun.
SAADIQ: The good time is you’re around a lot of great people, a lot of great thinkers. Everybody’s a thinker in the room. It’s sort of like I was at my studio for a lot of it on my own. But sometimes I went to the studio where it was like five or six rooms and different people working in different studios. And you can go grab, you know, The-Dream out of a room, which is an amazing songwriter, producer. Any musician is on call. I would just dream up like, call this guy, call this guy.
And that’s how Quincy Jones would do it. You got to be able to have that book, that black book to call the right musicians. And that’s why music suffers to me now. You’re not making a phone call, so everything sounds the same. You’re not giving different energy, different spirits, different personalities on music. You need different personalities. It’s not about you. It’s about everybody else and then you. That’s what makes great records. And that’s what the fun thing about Beyonce’s record was.
MOSLEY: This particular song, “Bodyguard,” though, you presented that to Beyonce. But that wasn’t necessarily the song. She can choose, and she chose that of yours.
SAADIQ: Yeah, that song, I was going through my Dropbox. And I was playing songs in a room with her. She was in the room. Jay-Z was in the room, Jay, and some of the staff. And I was looking for a song. I don’t think the phone was even hooked up to the speakers. And I played it, and I stopped it real quick because that’s not the song I wanted to play. And I didn’t think it was something she even liked. But she caught it in, like, two seconds. She goes, what’s that? And I’m going, oh, that’s just this idea that I had. And I played it, and she’s like, what are you doing with it? And that’s how it got on the record.
MOSLEY: I want to play a little bit of “Bodyguard.” And it actually is at the point where there’s, like, this solo guitar. Let’s listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BODYGUARD”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) Oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I could be your bodyguard. Please, let me be your Kevlar. Baby, let me be your lifeguard. Would you let me ride shotgun, shotgun? Oh.
MOSLEY: That was Beyonce singing her award-winning song “Bodyguard,” written by my guest today, Raphael Saadiq. That guitar at the end, that was also not planned, right? Is that you?
SAADIQ: Yeah, that’s me. Yeah.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
SAADIQ: She wanted a solo. Bey wanted a solo. And I did a solo. And she was like, can we make it longer? And you never hear that from an artist in 2025 – playing a guitar solo, they want it longer. But she knows her audience, and she knows that is rare. And she’s like, I think we could do that. We can have a 16-bar solo on this record. So that was a little bit of pressure, to go back in there and play, like, a 16-bar solo.
MOSLEY: (Laughter) Yeah.
SAADIQ: Because I would’ve called my boy. I would’ve called Eric Gales.
MOSLEY: Who is Eric Gales?
SAADIQ: Eric Gales is one of the most amazing guitar players in the world today. He’s from Memphis, Delta blues. He was the guy that’s playing – he played a lot of guitar in “Sinners.” But I would’ve called him…
MOSLEY: Yeah.
SAADIQ: …To play, but he was on tour, so I had to play it. And it came out good.
MOSLEY: I love how you – I had to play it.
SAADIQ: I had to play it.
MOSLEY: You had to.
SAADIQ: I like spreading it around.
MOSLEY: Yep. I think that, like, something about that, about Beyonce choosing that song where you mistakenly played it – but then you’re like, oh. And she says, no, what is that? I’ve heard you say both she and Solange – because you wrote “Cranes In The Sky” for “A Seat At The Table,” her album – that they make choices like that. It’s sort of like the mark of a great musician is to go outside the box, the places that aren’t safe. It just made me very interested to know more about how you write these songs. Many times, they’re for yourself. And then many years later, you might present them to an artist like Beyonce or Solange. You can tell about just how brave they are and how far they’re going to go with it based on the choices they make on your selections.
SAADIQ: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I don’t know. I guess it’s in the water in Houston. That family, both of them are, like, really particular about what they like as far as design, style, you know, staging. And you know what you can pull off. And it’s not a lot of artists that take those chances. They take chances. And music is about taking chances, taking risks, lasting longer than your teacher or your executives or labels or anything like that.
You know, for me it’s like, what chance are you going to take if you’re playing music? You have to be – you have to dare to suck, and a lot of people don’t do that. I don’t fault people that don’t do that. But when you run into people that do, you have to know, like, I’m going to try myself. I’m going to try to, not be different – I’m going to try to do something that I like first. And secondly, I hope it’s the audience that likes it also. But first I have to like it.