5 Tony! Toni! Toné! songs that define their legacy of soul

Did you know Oakland’s own Tony! Toni! Toné!, the R&B/Soul band with New Jack Swing accents and balladry that could give Babyface a run for his money on a good day, consisting of family members Raphael Saadiq, Timothy Christian Riley, and D’Wayne Wiggins, was given the honor by SPIN magazine in 2012 of having the 24th greatest band name of all time? Right before the Shitty Beatles. Yep, that’s a name, too. 

Wiggins had said in the past it came from having hair that looked so good that if he was still in school, the teacher would call him Tony three times. The band came to like the name and then adopted it into Tony! Toni! Toné! for the band because it gave the impression of a certain type of fly guy back in the day.

After a stint as musicians on Prince’s Parade Tour in 1986, the trio formed Tony! Toni! Toné! back in their hometown of Oakland that same year and found success performing around the San Francisco Bay Area. In a 2023 interview with KQED, Saadiq confessed the band enjoyed playing a different type of venue at the start. “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.”

If you think for a second about the high energy that emanated from the band, their yearning for perfection in performance, and that extra-special desire to connect with their fans on a more neutral platform, hell yeah—playing, jamming, rehearsing, and doing extra-long workouts at parks completely tracks. There is no fee, restricting true fans from falling in and getting a whiff of what these brothers were cooking up next. There was no bar serving high-priced, watered-down drinks, and any live performer will tell you. Performing outdoors, similar to Denzel walking those boards in a play on Broadway, is where you truly test your mettle, tune up your instrument, and woodshed your performance until it’s ready to hit the road.

Unfortunately for me, and I would guess many of their fans, when all three original members of Tony! Toni! Toné! were prepping to go on their Just Me And You Tour, specifically in the Bay Area for three shows in late 2023, I didn’t know that it would be the last one. On March 7, it was announced that D’Wayne Wiggins, the singer, guitarist, and co-founder of Tony! Toni! Toné!, died of bladder cancer. The news was shared on Wiggins’ and the band’s official social media accounts. He was 64 years old.

“D’Wayne’s life was incomparable, and his music and service impacted millions around the world, including in his hometown of Oakland, California,” Wiggins’ family said in a statement. “He was a guitarist, producer, composer, philanthropist, mentor, and founding member of Tony! Toni! Toné! He was deeply passionate about providing artist development and mentorship to emerging young musicians, helping to shape the early careers of many.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, music lovers around the world were mourning the passing of royalty giants Roberta Flack and Roy Ayers. In the way Roberta Flack was a teacher and the ultimate singer-songwriter supreme, and Roy Ayers was not just the father of neo-soul but also the genesis of funk-jazz, Tony! Toni! Toné! arrived in the mid to late ’80s as a throwback R&B band of sorts, presenting nu-jack swing production slickness and almost unmatched songwriting dynamite from the three members. Many like to view this period as the introduction to the Raphael Saadiq reign, which would include the formation of the supergroup Lucy Pearl (Dawn Robinson, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Saadiq) and future work with D’Angelo.

But Tony! Toni! Toné! conquered R&B during their 88-’98 run. They were not just Oakland fabulous; they came to inhabit international soul music that future crooners such as Maxwell, D’Angelo, Usher, and so many more would pick from the talented discography and cover these songs as if they were from a greater American songbook. That’s the legacy this great band from Oakland leaves behind. Before detailing five songs that speak to their evergreen impact on popular music, I’d like to leave a quote from D’Wayne Wiggins that appeared in his New York Times obituary—which addresses how the world and his own Oakland have changed: “I grew up across the street from DeFremery Park, where Sly Stone used to play and the Black Panthers would hold rallies,” he told The Las Cruces Sun-News in 2016. “Today, you have 20 million rappers in one city; back then, you had 20 million musicians, bands all over the place.”

Here are five songs that define the Black excellence that is Tony! Toni! Toné!

“Me & You” (1991)

Connecting with a larger moment, that was John Singleton’s debut film, Boyz N the Hood, this song provides a moment in the film where people can just breathe, exist within innocent things, and connect humanity through those harmonies and the simplicity of just two people. It’s a highlight in the film and has become one at Black family gatherings still to this day. That’s songwriting.

“Whatever You Want” (1991)

It’s comedic by today’s standards, but The Revival in 1991 caught critics at the time calling the band “retro.” Imagine that in today’s Colemine and Daptone Records world. But “Whatever You Want” pulled an extra special trick of constructing that old-school balladry, with various voices and unrushed harmonies, and still somehow, someway, just a pinch of Prince-adjacent magic dust in the batter. One of their finest ballads—and they had many—but this had staying power amongst oldsters, youngsters, hipsters, or anyone with a damn pulse. It did provide, indeed.

“Let’s Get Down” (1996)

So everyone knows the cleverest musicians are pranksters at heart. These brothers flipped Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” chorus and wrote a jam that featured DJ Quik rapping. That’s genius…and a bona fide hit.

“If I Had No Loot” (1992)

With the Sons of Soul project, the group wanted to pay homage to previous artists such as the Temptations, Sly and the Family Stone, Earth, Wind and Fire, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown. In that great feeling of being descendants of those performers, it’s fitting that a song like “If I Had No Loot” discusses yet another topic in the ever-steadfast study of the human condition, with the ironic Ice Cube sample running in the background: “And you can New Jack Swing on my nuts” to boot.

“Tell Me Mama” (1992)

It’s a straight-up homage to young Michael and The Jackson Five’s golden era, right down to the guitar picking, the high-reaching vocals, those collective harmonies riding over a groove, and the constant regret of doing “that girl” wrong. There are complete “Maybe Tomorrow” vibes flowing throughout this throwback song.  

Fun fact: The Maybe Tomorrow album by the Jackson Five, while not their best-selling album, has, for some reason, the most often-sampled and covered material in the group’s catalogue.

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