D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

I could barely even tell D was on that Slingbaum track. I think I remember one song seemed okay

Another Life does this wonderful thing where it keeps switching from tentative to confident, and has these chords that are like an unsure ascent, and the infinite D'Angelos harmonise in the most bewitching and unexpected ways. It really sends me.

https://m.mixcloud.com/sonos/radio-hour-with-dangelo/

whoa

Ah, man. This was from a while back, right? Any links to a download floating out there?

Just played Black Messiah for the first time in eons, actually.

I need to write down the tracklisting. I could see d'angelo as a DJ. God knows he has the time in between albums!

Good thing he knows "the secret to beating writer's block".

Actually I have no trouble believing that he has no issue with writer's block, he just takes forever laboring over a record and deciding he wants to release something.

Wonder what his discogs username is.

questlove has said that he's a perfectionist and a tinkerer who never thinks his music is good enough to be released

and yet Black Messiah sounds the opposite of laboured; the influences and references are all upfront, but it still sounds fresh, spontaneous, rough almost. certainly not overproduced.

i was at the press event where they played black messiah for the first time ever and i remember questlove saying that they essentially had to wrest control over the music from d’angelo during a very small window of time in order to get a track list done and the album released, or else he never would’ve put anything out. but it’s not like the songs weren’t done

Hed never over produce his music. He likes early 70s stuff too much to do that I think his tinkering is more in the Coppola sense. There will always be something else he thinks of.

over under finished

it's just words

also thinking about the record as a finish is just not

think he's just kinda neurotic basically

unprofessional to diagnose on the fly imo

Hopefully he has a therapist but I doubt it somehow

tracklist to that mix -
sly - i cannot make it
nick hakim - i dont know
mahavishnu orchestra - you know you know
george duke/billy cobham - almoustafa the beloved
lewis taylor - i dream the better dream (not heard this guy in years)
prince - sister (lol)
prince - head
ohio players - silly billy
pete rock/cl - soul brother #1
fishbone - subliminal fascism
gangstarr - take 2 and pass
funkadelic - cholly
de la - potholes
slum village - get dis money
unknown mortal orchstra - ministry of alienation
funkadelic - grooveallegiance
marvin gaye - soon ill be loving you again
brentford all stars - greedy g (love that the one dub record he picks is a JB cover lol)
dangelo - the root

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxMYh9TwEbs

to demonstrate how long stuff can gestate with him, questlove leaked this version of "really love" all the way back in 2007 and while it's missing a few details that were added to the final version, it's not like it was radically reworked or anything since then

fishbone - subliminal fascism

feel that D'Angelo's Fishbone love doesn't get enough attention

He’s doing a Verzuz on the 27th!

exciting. i predict it wont be maxwell or anyone like that, it will just be a friendly kind of battle with his usual buddies like questlove, q-tip, etc.

he should challenge 20 different artists to pit their best song against cuts from the three albums and casually obliterate them

well that seems like that's the plan right? it's "vs friends"

not sure what the actual plan is, seems like it'll be more of a performance than past verzuz events

it's hardly a true analogue but the only contemporary artist i can think of off the top of my head that i'd like to hear go song-for-song against d'angelo song for song is usher

yeah it's at the Apollo so i think it'll be more of a performance than just pressing play and awkwardly dancing to it or whatever the fuck artists do at these things now (sorry haven't watched a Verzuz in months)

xp i'd like to see d'angelo vs. badu, but she already did a charming edition with jill scott

(this is the part where i say that i saw d'angelo at the apollo during the black messiah tour and that it was a top 25 concert for sure)

brandy vs dangelo would have also been a fucking knockout

usher would be kinda unexpected but actually kind of cool and interesting. trying to think what dangelo would come back with when usher plays OMG though. trying to picture him singing along with "honey got some boobies like wow, oh wow".

id have loved a badu vs dangelo battle. partly to see what they picked, but really just to see what they talk about to each other.

"not sure what the actual plan is, seems like it'll be more of a performance than past verzuz events"

def hope so.

(this is the part where i say that i saw d'angelo at the apollo during the black messiah tour and that it was a top 25 concert for sure)

saw him at the (Hammersmith) Apollo on that tour and it's easily Top 3 for me

yeah i saw him at the playstation theater (rip) and it was totally amazing (chris dave, jesse johnson, pino palladino, can't really top that)

I saw the First Ave show and even though it started real late, was so crowded that you didn't even want to think about using the bathroom for fear of never being able to get back to your spot, the sound was way too loud & noisy, and my knees never hurt so much...it was easily one of the best shows I've ever seen and I'm so glad I did.

I know everyone was hoping for the Prince sighting/sit-in but also I think everyone knew deep down it was never going to happen. He would never do what everyone expected/wanted, if nothing else.

prince was darth vader to dangelo's luke.

he would prob have preferred to slice dangelos arm off.

:)

he just took the stage for his verzuz. on instagram and apple music

he’s going through some brown sugar highlights

tuned into this when it was supposed to began but he was late so i tuned out.. but looking at the tracklist that he went through, oh my god this looks amazing

Saw his Bonnaroo set on the Black Messiah tour, it was great, one of my favorite shows of the last decade at least.

Set-opener here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-AMxKWcQks

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9532420/dangelo-verzuz-how-to-watch

Ooops. Wrong link.

https://pitchfork.com/news/watch-dangelos-verzuz-battle-live-at-the-apollo-theater/

Doesnt look very verzuz!

Swizz and Timb just said on IG live that it was supposed to be D’Angelo #VERZUZ Maxwell on Valentine’s Day but it didn’t work out and D’Angelo was ready so they went this route. I loved tonight but wow that would’ve been something.

— Sylvia (@SylviaObell) February 28, 2021

Should have postponed it until both could do it. That would have been cool.

I only saw him once, early on the Voodoo tour, couple of months after the album came out. Band was about a dozen people, including Questlove, Pino and Poyser.

I saw that tour. Lot of big JB and prince style sections. Worked well for the newer songs, not so well for the brown sugar songs.

Huh, I kind of remember it differently. I remember him ripping off his shirt and racing around the theatre while singing "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker."

Lol. Not saying I wasnt thinking, wow, maybe this is what seeing JB might have been like, in 2001, but I mean, you try and make everything into a faster funk number and songs like Brown sugar and shit damn mf or lady lose some of their individuality.