Raphael Saadiq Would Love To Have A Lucy Pearl Reunion “But It’s Not Really Possible”

February 27, 2025

According to Raphael Saadiq, a Lucy Pearl reunion isn’t in the cards — although he’d be open to it.

In an interview with Variety regarding his “No Bandwidth: One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits” mini-tour, Saadiq was asked about the possibility of revisiting the R&B supergroup he formed with A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad and En Vogue’s Dawn Robinson, especially since the group’s debut — and only — album, Lucy Pearl, turns 25 this May.

“Honestly I would love to but it’s not really possible,” he said. “You know how groups are. Groups are like Spinal Tap. Lucy Pearl was, in the nicest way I can say, definitely a Spinal tap kind of band.”

In a past interview with ESSENCE magazine, Robinson had discussed a Lucy Pearl reunion, claiming that she “tried to talk to [Saadiq] about a reunion, but Ali had a lawsuit against him because he felt like he did him wrong because we found out later that Raphael had made side deals.”

“I believe there’s strength in numbers not to get money but when God puts something together this great you don’t walk away from it, you work it out. But his ego got in the way.”

Robinson also expressed disappointment that the group only released one album, saying, “I was really sad that it was only a one-off. We decided that we wouldn’t commit to a long-term situation unless album sales made sense.”

Still, the singer spoke fondly of the group, telling ESSENCE, “Lucy Pearl is one of my favorite groups. I loved the creation me and Raphael had together since we were kids, creating this whole sound and how we came up with the idea of Lucy Pearl, because it was our idea as opposed to En Vogue, which was put together.”

On May 23, 2000, Lucy Pearl would release its self-titled debut album. However, the group disbanded in 2001.

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