On this day 30 years ago, there was an R&B trio from Oakland, California who gave us some of the greatest music in R&B history. Consisting of two brothers and a cousin, these men provided our bedrooms and cookouts with a soundtrack that timeless. Something we can dance to and something we lay under our lovers with and enjoy the night away in love. Raphael Saadiq, D’wayne Wiggins, & Timothy Riley aka Tony! Toni! Toné!, released their sophomore album “The Revival.” The follow up to their debut album 2 years prior, their new album was a huge step up from their debut. It’s the album with their most recognized hits that we all know and love. Singles like “The Blues”, “Whatever You Want” and the most famous two “It Never Rains (In Southern California)” & the danceable track “Feels Good”, the perfect title for a song that makes you feel exactly like that when you hear it. The album charted for exactly 64 weeks on the Billboard Top Pop Albums, peaking at the #34 spot on the chart. “Feels Good” went certified gold, selling 500,000 copies and topped the R&B chart for two weeks and reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 selling over 1 million copies. “It Never Rains (In Southern California)” became a #1 R&B hit and went #34 on the Hot 100. The album was certified platinum by RIAA for selling one million copies in the U.S. alone in ‘91 and in ‘92, it sold another million according to Nielsen SoundScan. This album was the groups “breakout” album, topping the debut and pushing these men to another level, gaining them the utmost respect in R&B music and history. Sorta like the R&B version of A Tribe Called Quest, the group had that same youthfulness and hip hop/jazzy touch but with a swing in their hips and a golden touch and voices that had you dancing and wanting to make love in the next moment. They are indeed soulful but didn’t touch on traditional R&B standards and instead used their body work for more social commentary and political statements as well. With so many elements and sounds from this album, these gentlemen, without a doubt, left a mark in the New Jack Swing movement and in R&B forever.
Written by Jalen Hemphill