For the Taking the Lead series, we asked leaders in a variety of fields to share insights on what they’ve learned and what lies ahead.
Years before Steve Lacy’s single “Bad Habit” reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts and became one of the biggest songs of 2022, he connected with R&B veteran Raphael Saadiq in an unusually accidental way: by bumping into him on a parking spot.
At the time, circa 2017, Saadiq lived above an old bowling alley in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. “All my friends thought I was crazy for living there, but I was just trying to get out of the typical spaces,” he recalled in a recent video interview. Walking through the parking lot behind the building one day, he saw “two cats in the car listening to music.” It sounded good, so he tapped the window to pay his respects. One of the guys in the car was Jameel Bruner, formerly of the R&B collective the Internet, who recently hit a new high with their 2015 album ‘Ego Death’. “He said, ‘I’m Thundercat’s little brother'” – referring to bassist and vocalist Stephen Bruner – “‘and this is Steve Lacy.'”
That chance meeting led to mutual respect and friendship between the artists, whose careers show some parallels. In the late 1980s, Saadiq, now 56, made his breakthrough as the lead singer of the band Tony! Ton! Toné!, whose sweet-tongued new jack swing compositions heralded the neo-soul movement that would come to define the 1990s. After leaving the band, he became an in-demand producer for artists such as Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, as well as establishing himself as a solo artist with records such as 2002’s “Instant Vintage” and “The Way I” from 2008. Seeing it.” Most recently, he worked on Beyoncé’s 2022 LP ‘Renaissance’ and earned an Emmy nomination for his music composition on the HBO show ‘Lovecraft Country’.
Lacy was barely a teenager when he was recruited by the internet after meeting Bruner in their high school’s jazz band. (After being nominated for his first Grammy, thanks to his playing on “Ego Death” when he was 17, he couldn’t tour with the band because he had to finish school.) Just like the members of Tony! Ton! Show! had persuaded Saadiq to become their vocalist, Lacy’s internet fans urged him to record his own material, starting with 2017’s “Steve Lacy’s Demo” EP. Last year, Lacy broke through as a bona fide solo star with his LP “Gemini Rights”, which included “Bad Habit”, and he won the Grammy for Best Progressive R&B Album. He also continued to make a career as a producer, lending his languid yet sunny guitar tone to artists such as Ravyn Lenae, Kali Uchis and Solange.
