Talking With Tony! Toni! Toné! About Finally Coming Back to Oakland — Together

Earlier this year, when a cryptic announcement hit social media that all three original members of Tony! Toni! Toné! were going on tour, I, like a lot of people, immediately searched for more details. I even texted the number they said to text, and I normally avoid celebrity text sign-up promos. But this was Tony! Toni! Toné! — and an extra special hometown show in Oakland was sure to come.

When tickets for a show at the Paramount were eventually announced, they quickly sold out. So the group added a second Paramount show (at press time, also nearly sold out). Which just proves the love that Oakland shares for Raphael Saadiq, D’Wayne Wiggins and Timothy Christian Riley, and the music they’ve produced while always repping their hometown.

And, as Raphael Saadiq and D’Wayne Wiggins shared when I caught up with them over Zoom before their Just Me and You Tour arrives at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland this week, it’ll be a dream come true to give that love right back.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Ariana Proehl: You’re in the final days of this tour. How excited are you for these hometown shows? And knowing that you sold out the Paramount?

D’Wayne Wiggins: It’s like living out a dream. The Paramount Theatre. I’ve watched many artists there. I met Cab Calloway there when I was a kid. Seeing Frankie Beverly every November. Historical events have been there. For us to be there.… and on stage with family? Oh my God.

Raphael Saadiq: I think my excitement will happen when we get to the venue, and then after we get dressed, and that moment we’re about to walk on. And that’s the craziest feeling we get in a place like the Paramount…. We did L.A. [last Saturday] and L.A. was something that we couldn’t even imagine. I don’t even want to think about what Oakland could be. I don’t know how to do that right now.

I imagine there’s going to be a lot of family in the audience.

Raphael Saadiq: It’s going to be a lot of friends. A lot of family. A lot of people happy to see us together. And we’ll be happy to see them, too. It’s been a long time coming. The energy between us three and also the energy between the audience has been something that we couldn’t put together. Money couldn’t put it together. It’s just special. It’s like the perfect storm right now for us.

So was it easy to just drop back in and find the flow with each other on stage again?

Raphael Saadiq: It never changed.

D’Wayne Wiggins: We’re comfortable on stage together like that… We know each other’s moves. We know each other’s vibes, we know each other’s style. You know, the history we have together. Certain licks we’ll do, certain turnarounds. Ray’ll change the show right before your eyes and say something in Tim’s ear. That’s the beauty of it. You know, it’s like we levitate together. We rise.

Do you have any favorite memories of when you first started playing together? Like out in Oakland clubs?

Raphael Saadiq: We’ve had our share of clubs, one being the Lucky Lion. That was a place – I guess it would be like First Avenue in Minneapolis, for bands in Oakland. But playing outside in parks was the bigger thing in Oakland. We played a lot of parks. Arroyo Viejo Park, as well as Elmhurst Park on C Street and 98th — I think that was my first gig at a park. My best memories are of playing at parks, not at clubs.

D’Wayne Wiggins: That’s great memories, too, because DeFremery Park, Sobrante Park, Arroyo Viejo Park, San Antonio Park. Maaan, every park we must have jammed at, you know?

I read, Raphael, that when you kind of stealthily announced the tour, you wanted it to be very organic — not be leading with the business aspect, but with family. Is that right?

Raphael Saadiq: Yeah… for a long time I was quoted as saying, ‘I’ll probably never do [Tony! Toni! Toné!] again.’ And I did say that, but I kind of said it knowing I can’t control that, right? But I knew I wanted to put the announcement out very beautifully. I wanted to see us look how we look. Get the right photos out, and throw a billboard up in the middle of East Oakland, where we started. And not tell D’Wayne and not tell Tim. Not tell any management people. We felt like Oakland should know first.

You know, we’ve not just played music in that city, but we’ve lost family members in that city. We ate a lot of cheeseburgers in that city. We ate a lot of donuts. We’ve had a lot of fights with people. We dodged bullets… We watched karate movies at Eastmont Mall at the Lux. We got to watch buildings go up and go down. We watched the whole city change from Black to what it is now. You know, we’ve seen a lot. We walked those streets so much. We watched our parents get old and, you know, watched our father [pass away]. So many people we said ‘good morning’ to that’s not there no more. Older people who taught us, that died a natural death, who had a good life.

So we have a lot ingrained in us that’s not just music. We’re not just music anymore. We’re feeling like this ancestor thing coming out. Spirit just took over. We’re just riding the wave. I really feel like that. And that’s how I’ve been feeling on the tour.

D’Wayne Wiggins: The music is the score to our lives, you know. It helped us stay focused. We learned a lot. We still learn a lot. We walked away from the industry. It wasn’t like we weren’t selling [records]. We just had other goals that we wanted to pursue and it took us a while to gather all of those thoughts and those passions. And when you see us on stage together, you can see we’ve been through a lot and it shines. And Oakland is our base, no matter what.

Tony! Toni! Toné! plays the Paramount Theatre in Oakland on Nov. 14 and 15, and The Masonic in San Francisco on Nov. 17. Details and ticket info here.