Raphael Saadiq Explains How His Search For A Joint Led To Him & D'Angelo Making "Untitled"

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The singer said he and D'Angelo made the song in two hours.

A couple months back, Raphael Saadiq recalled how no one wanted his song "Lady" until D'Angelo took it. now, the Jimmy Lee artist has recounted how "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" came about.

READ: D’Angelo Documentary Claims A New Album Is In The Works

While speaking with NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael, Saadiq explained how he was walking around Greenwich Village and trying to find a joint. This search led to him going to Electric Lady Studios in hopes that D'Angelo was there and had a joint.

"I rung the bell, 'Is D'Angelo here?' He opens the door," Saadiq recalls. "He's like, 'What's Up?' I ask him, 'You got a joint?' 'Hell yeah I got a joint!' He's like, 'Can we do a song?' I'm like, 'Yeah, whatever, yeah.' We walk in and we do 'Untitled' in maybe, like, two hours."

"The tape runs out...we were gonna add more tape and make an ending and I was like, 'Nah, don't do that. Just leave it like that," Saadiq continues, before adding that they chose to name it "Untitled" because the tapes were named "untitled."

Previously, Saadiq said nobody wanted “Lady” until D’Angelo heard it.

“I had ‘Lady’…maybe six years before I met D’Angelo,” he said during an appearance on ESSENCE‘s Yes, Girl! podcast. “I wrote a big part of ‘Lady’ like the chorus and the music.”

He even said that his manager told him that “everything you write is not a hit” because he wasn’t able to place the song.

“But when I met D I said, ‘I got this idea and I started playing it and he just looked at me and said, ‘I like it,'” Saadiq continued. “So we started writing the lyrics together, to the verse.”

“It’s for him because at that time it’s like you can’t hold anything, and if you hold things, you might stunt your growth of ever having the opportunity to write another one because you’re so afraid to something them go,” Saadiq added.

Source: NPR