The cost was working behind the scenes while other artists took the spotlight. Saadiq wrote and produced for some of the most important artists of the 1990s and 2000s, but his own name never carried the same weight as the acts he produced. He did not seem to mind the anonymity -- he preferred the studio to the stage. His solo career launched in 2002 with Instant Vintage, which earned him a Grammy nomination. He shifted to a 1960s-inspired Motown sound on The Way I See It in 2008, featuring Joss Stone and Stevie Wonder.

I Want You Back is the track he produced for Maxwell on the Love Jones soundtrack -- not the Jackson 5 song, the Maxwell cover that showed what Saadiq could do with a classic song and a vocalist who trusted his production completely. He scored films, mentored younger artists, and became the connective tissue between 1970s soul and 21st-century R&B.