I Miss D’Angelo
Happy (super late) 50th birthday to soul legend D’Angelo! One of the greatest and most acclaimed singers of the ‘90s, across any genre, has been relatively off the map for the greater part of 25 years, aside from the release of his 2014 album Black Messiah alongside his band D’Angelo and The Vanguard. So what exactly happened? Where did he go, and why was he so important to the structure of music nowadays?
I don’t have anything particular I want to say in this post, aside from praising one of my favourite musicians and bringing more attention to him for anyone who has somehow missed out on this legend. Born February 11th 1974, D’Angelo began his experience with music playing piano from a very young age, and started pursuing music as a career when he dropped out of school at 18 to relocate to New York City. After Jocelyn Cooper, a partner for Afropunk Festival, heard a demo of his rap group I.D.U., he was signed to Midnight Songs LLC, and was shortly after introduced to various musicians such as Raphael Saadiq and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest fame). After experiencing a bit of success with the track “U Will Know” which he helped write and produce, he released his debut album Brown Sugar in 1995, helping bring him into the mainstream.
While it is his weakest album in my opinion, Brown Sugar is still a fantastic neo-soul project that really helped set the stage for the music he would create further into his career. A sexy, slow, and dreamy project that is often referred to online as “neo-soul’s Illmatic,” it helped to define the genre in its young age while leaving plenty of room for things to be tinkered with and moved around, allowing for tremendous growth in his following albums. With the highlight single “Lady” reaching the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 following months of slowly gaining traction for the album, D’Angelo was ballooned into one of the most important and successful musicians in the scene, with his incredible vocals and genuine lyrics floating over the production, of which he contributed to through the album.
Sometime between Brown Sugar and his sophomore album Voodoo, D’Angelo was a part of the music collective The Soulquarians, which included musicians like Talib Kweli, Mos Def, multiple members of the Roots, Erykah Badu, and more. The powerhouses involved in this group all helped contribute to each other’s albums and produced numerous other classics, like the Roots’ Things Fall Apart and Slum Village’s Fantastic, Vol. 2. With this new group and system surrounding him, and flanked by the formerly mentioned singer Raphael Saadiq, D’Angelo began work on his second studio album, the neo-soul classic Voodoo.
Released at the beginning of 2000, D’Angelo marked the turn of the century with an album that would help to shape all soul music that was to come. Anchored by lead single “Untitled (How Does It Feel) and its sensuous music video, the project was more musically unconventional than its predecessor, which was seemingly a risk that paid off in dividends. An incredible album that to this day stands alone in its sound and influence, each listen unfolds something new for the listener to discover, and it sounds as fresh as ever 24 years after its release. Frequently cited as one of the greatest albums of all time across all genres, landing on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums” at number 28, it is an undisputed classic that fans of music in any genre should consider essential listening. D’Angelo, however, did not view it as positively. Unhappy with the perception that the album had given him to the public, and the perceived oversexualization of him due largely to the music video for “Untitled”, he would leave this album as his final album for almost 15 years, disappearing from the spotlight whenever his legal troubles weren’t popping up. Between Voodoo and the roll-out for his follow up album, the now-reclusive singer was only a part of four released singles and a handful of guest appearances. And then Black Messiah came.
Far and away my favourite album he released, Black Messiah was released December 15, 2014 to rave reviews and helped to catapult D’Angelo back into the spotlight. What can I really say about this album that has not been said since its release? It is incredibly adventurous, putting his preceding album to shame and making it sound almost milquetoast with the risks that he takes across this project. Highlight 1000 Deaths may just be one of my favourite songs ever released, and this album could also honestly be argued to be up there for me too. Sonically, this album finds D’Angelo with a whole different pallet by incorporating more funk and experimental influences into his music. Even though it was a solid 19 year stretch, this album helped to close one of the greatest music trilogies ever released, each one improving on the last and introducing new tricks into the fold. Debuting at 5 on the Billboard 200 and winning the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album in 2016, surely this would be his grand return to the stage and he would continue his hot streak, right? Right?
Nope.
Since Black Messiah came out, not much has happened on the D’Angelo front. Although he spoke to Rolling Stone that he was working on new songs for an upcoming album, referred to as a “companion piece” to his latest, those have yet to come into fruition. The last solo track he released was a song for the game Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2019, titled “Unshaken”. One of the greatest singers to ever grace my ears, and an incredibly talented writer and producer to boot, D’Angelo is back to being a mysterious figure within the music scene. After helping to usher in neo-soul in the ‘90s, we can only hope that he will grant us another album one day. Maybe he won’t though, and that’s okay too. At least we have these three to keep us occupied in the meantime.