Raphael Saadiq promised that a new Tony! Toni! Toné! album was coming after their epic reunion tour, but we’ll have to wait a little longer for that project to come to fruition. Although there’s no new Tonyies album to put under the Christmas tree this year, Raphael didn’t leave us hanging this holiday season. The musical maestro lent his songwriting and production genius to the soundtrack for the Reginald Hudlin film Candy Cane Lane starring Eddie Murphy and Tracee Ellis Ross on the single “Miracle” featuring British songstress Kelli-Leigh. The upbeat, feel-good tune hits on a special Christmas sentiment: family over everything.
In Candy Cane Lane, Murphy’s character Chris Carver is a lover of all things Christmas. He makes handcrafted decorations for his neighborhood’s annual competition on their eponymous street. This year, he finds himself laid off and desperate to win the cash prize. He enlists the help of an excommunicated elf with evil intentions and becomes a pawn in a deceptive game based on the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days Of Christmas.”
Notes from “Miracle” are heard throughout the film as the Carver family races against the clock to save their patriarch from the evil elf’s curse and break the spell that’s turned him into a “weird old-timely Happy Meal toy.” The family faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but each manages to do what they do best to get things done and the result of their unity is, well, a Christmas miracle. The full song plays during the end credits of the Christmas adventure family comedy.
“I can’t believe the love and the joy sent to me / Everybody came together / And that’s all that we need / We can’t get caught up in this world’s evil little game / Just believe it in your heart / Anything can come your way,” Kelli-Leigh sings triumphantly. In one particularly poignant lyric, she sings, “We need the whole family / When we swallow our pride / We can do anything.” Amen to that!
This single sweetly summarizes the parallels between Candy Cane Lane and the hugely successful Raphael Saadiq Revisits Tony! Tone! Toni!: Just Me & You Tour 2023. They both center around the same theme – when family puts their pride aside and works together, the outcome is miraculous.
Raphael Saadiq and Kelli-Leigh’s “Miracle” is one of the audio gems on the Candy Cane Lane (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). The album also features Coco Jones’ “A Timeless Christmas,” “Run Rudolph Run” by Foo Fighters, “12 Days Of Christmas” by Pentatonix (who also have a small role in the film...literally) and Marcus Miller’s lovely score.
Listen to “Miracle,” watch the lyric video with an introduction from Raphael Saadiq and sample the soundtrack below. Catch some wholesome holiday feels when you check out Candy Cane Lane on Prime Video with your family this Christmas.
