D'ANGELO IS THE PRINCE OF MY GENERATION
I grew up in what some may believe is the best era of R&B ever. The 90’s. I disagree because I believe the 80’s was the better decade of R&B to me but the 90’s was definitely nice.
I’m a Jodeci fanatic. I love Bobby Brown. I STAN Mary J. Blige. They were artists I felt I lived with and interacted with in my neighborhood. They have the personalities of people I’d talk to everyday on the block or on the porch. They were from the hood. They spoke to me. They just had that type of sauce.
Think about those artists I named above. How do they stack up next to Prince? Yeah you’re correct. They can’t stand next to him. It’s not a bad thing because there aren’t too many humans that can stand next to that man. I respect them as artists but it’s more than levels, we’re talking planets and stratospheres. As much as I loved those artists that I related to, they were limited when compared to icons. I’m just talking music. Nothing else.
Prince was before my time. My parents played a lot of Prince. Michael Jackson was before my time too. My introduction to Michael was “Remember The Time.” Not Thriller, Off The Wall, or Bad. I didn’t grow up in a Michael household though. My parents were Prince fanatics. Prince was the GOAT and if I thought different I would be homeless.
I always thought Prince was weird. I didn’t get him. He low key scared me. I didn’t understand him because I judged him. I thought he acted like a girl but that’s my thought as a child. I didn’t know any better. I just remember Jamie Foxx impersonating him on “In Living Color” and thought “Yeah Prince is weird.” I didn’t understand how important, great and iconic Prince was until I was an adult and he was no longer in the public eye.
I remember thinking about how Prince made my parents feel and how they would describe his music and his talents and I wondered if I would ever experience that feeling for an artist. I didn’t know at the time watching a new music video on B.E.T Video Soul that the Prince of my generation finally arrived.
When the song Brown Sugar debuted I was instantly hooked. The video was super simple and it matched the vibe of the song. If you heard the song before ever seeing the video you would think of a jazz lounge with an artist on stage taking pulls from a cigarette, surrounded by the smoke and dim lights and beautiful chocolate women catching the grooves from the stage. The black women in his videos we rarely see that amount of soul and confidence represented these days. I was infatuated when saw these images as a kid. Fun fact though. Brett Ratner did the Brown Sugar video. It was his first major project before he moved to his films like Rush Hour.
I knew at that moment that this is the singer for me. The hip-hop structure of his writing and production. He looked like a rapper but was much more than that. I was literally expecting him to rap somewhere in the song but he didn’t. The Jazz influence was clear. This is the singer that the streets needed. This singer was different. He wasn’t just a great voice. He was a multi-instrumentalist. He understood music theory. His writing was prolific.
D’Angelo was my Prince.
If Prince is Michael Jordan then D’Angelo is Kobe Bean Bryant and no lower than that. D’Angelo is the best musician since Prince and it’s ain’t close. Pick any genre. Any artist. Any gender. It aint close. It’s D’Angelo.
D’Angelo is heavily influenced by Prince so you hear it in some of his music but he still added his own flavor and originality to his music along with the influence. As time passed by with 3 classic albums this statement is proven correct.
When my dad bought Brown Sugar I knew it was flame because my dad is a music snob and don’t buy just anybody shit. If he bought your shit that meant you was really one of them muhfuckas. I just remember being hypnotized by D’Angelo’s voice. I didn’t understand cause I was so young but I knew I couldn’t stop listening.
The falsetto.
The runs he would kill.
The smooth baselines.
The Jazz.
The funk.
The hooks.
The lyrics.
The representation.
It was such a masterpiece. Again, this was the singer for our people.
I knew D’Angelo was here to stay. He fit the sound of 90’s R&B but at the same time his music was nothing like anyone else’s.
Years go by of not seeing D’Angelo after he dropped one of the greatest musical debut’s in history and the wait was worth it because one of the greatest pieces of art came into our lives. Voodoo arrives.
I didn’t care for Voodoo initially because it wasn’t Brown Sugar Part 2. I was so stuck on the sound of Brown Sugar that I wanted him to create it again. I was so stubborn and selfish but as time progressed I understood his elevation of creativity and he reached a new level as a musician. It was like Kobe in 2000. We knew Kobe was good but when he won the championship we knew he was forreal.
If you’re a musician who plays an instrument. Voodoo is your bible. Every musician wants to play how the musicians played on Voodoo. They broke rules. There wasn’t conformity. The musicians destroyed everything they were taught about rhythm. They dragged behind on everything and it sounded godlike. Some of the greatest grooves I heard in my life are on Voodoo.
Voodoo wasn’t Neo-Soul to me. I know we view D’Angelo as one of the pillars of Neo-soul but nah. Voodoo was BLACK MUSIC. Simple and plain. It was for us. It’s an album that takes you places. This man writes the most beautiful lyrics. The way that D’Angelo and the band expressed themselves so freely on Voodoo as an artist you can’t help but study it and attempt to construct your work like this album. I know it doesn’t have Thriller or Purple Rain numbers but Voodoo is just as good and just as important as those iconic albums.
When D’Angelo disappeared I didn’t understand. How do you create an album of the century and disappear? After hearing him imply that the Untitled music video drove him to depression it all made sense. Women telling you to strip on stage instead of listening to the music. Ripping your clothes off in the crowd. D’Angelo never really was a sex symbol. He never promoted that before Untitled. He was just the smooth nigga on the keys with the smoothest voice and that was it. It was about the music and the music only. It’s not about the aesthetic. It’s about the feeling the music provides. It’s about the spirit the music provides. It’s why I don’t give a fuck about music videos now forreal or choreography and shit like that. What is the music doing? The artist is the middle man between the people and the spirit and energy of the universe. They’re here just to deliver the message the universe/most high blessed them with.
To go 15 years without a D’Angelo album in hindsight you understand. It wasn’t about pressure after Voodoo. It was about surviving in a world where if you’re down to earth it’s not enough. If you’re true to yourself and individualistic people want to put group you and put you in a box as quick as possible. For someone like D’Angelo who like Prince puts music above everything that would drive an artist to insanity.
If 15 years gets me “Black Messiah” I’m okay with D’Angelo leaving for a decade and a half.
Black Messiah is just Funk N Roll. I love how D’Angelo doesn’t limit himself musically. The infusion of funk, blues, gospel, was just masterful. So many strange grooves and sounds. The vocal experimentation he and The Vanguard displayed, the variety in instrumentation, the diversity. Black Messiah proved D’Angelo is from another planet. D’Angelo channeled his Sly & The Family Stone influence and gave us his third classic. D’Angelo’s ability to pull from his influences and put a unique spin on it cannot be fucked with.
No other artist can disappear for 15 years and resurface and still be relevant and BE BETTER. D’Angelo can only be compared to icons only. Nobody else. He makes the most “You don’t know nothing about this young’n” music ever. How in the fuck does all your albums sound like they were recorded TOMORROW? That’s how ahead of his time D’Angelo is. I don’t throw the “G” word around a lot but you cannot deny D’Angelo’s genius.
In a weird way D’Angelo ruined music for me in a sense where I compare other albums to his work & I’m like nah fam it ain’t close. He spoiled me. It’s hard to listen to something that helps you ascend to a place you had no idea existed then go listen to music that’s just for the moment. It’s not timeless. D’Angelo discography can stop an alien invasion. They can come here and hear his music and they’ll just say “My fault” and leave. The man music can save humanity.
They don’t make albums like D’Angelo did. Albums today are reaches, they’re all aesthetic, the content is forced. The content we hear on albums today are just twitter topics. You can literally see through them. It’s all special effects. All fluff. I have to DIG to find musicians cut from his cloth. Prince was saying the same thing about current albums from today’s artist before he left in the physical. Today when people talk about albums being classic or having top tier writing I’m not impressed and D’Angelo is the reason for that.
D’Angelo. A artist he never compromised his music. A artist that understands the importance of not trying to erase the musicians before him. A artist with a perfect discography. You don't have to invent a million things to be called a genius. A genius takes their time and provides things that will grow in appreciation and value again and again over time. All of his music does that.
On second thought. He isn’t the Prince of my generation. He’s the D’Angelo of my generation and that’s just as good.
Peace
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