D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

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.

there's gotta be a way to get the verzuz's as video files, right? anyone have any info on this?

There are a bunch of IG downloaders out there, I think

i wouldn't mind being pointed at them

forks et al this is on apple music now as an album... very high quality recording obv, he & the band sound amazing

well he didn't actually have a band for it, it's just him on keys + a dj playing backing tracks + a few guests here and there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfGw4LWg3ec

full performance is here

ah, well nonetheless

Good but not amazing. The show I saw on That last tour he did with a band was pretty amazing though

This really was the best album of the decade

thanks

hm, really hard to get a sense of how much of this is live based on this youtube; never a fan of backing tracks

shout out to target

meth and red tho!

It would be cool if they just said fuck it and shot in landscape mode

Now that the 2010s are over, can we say this was the best album?

I still listen to it all the time. Total classic.

He might take forever but hes obv getting better each time out. Hoping that continues. Another life is still absolutely incredible and beautiful. I'd personally prefer if 1000 deaths didnt have the sampled speech at the start as I don't need that in my life but that track I never get bored of. Hope he keeps working with kendra foster too.

Now that the 2010s are over, can we say this was the best album?

Yes. Also, the show on this tour was the best show.

Was reviewing an album with a George Floyd-referencing track on it yesterday and thinking about how the song was totally fine, stirring and moving, but still not a patch on The Charade, and how graceful and powerful and sad that track is, while still being a gossamer-light 3 minute pop song. He's a genius. What he does is magical.

Now that the 2010s are over, can we say this was the best album?

Yes. Also, the show on this tour was the best show.

Yes to both, without question.

This not only still sounds fresh to me but it still sounds ahead of our time. There are musical and sonic layers I'm still discovering. I'm also appreciating him more as a lyricist. IDK if I can even call it a defining record bc there's nothing else like it.

Now that the 2010s are over, can we say this was the best album?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive),

This really was the best album of the decade

― akm, Sunday, March 14, 2021 4:42 AM (two months ago)

yeah it's a masterpiece

i feel like even though it was so highly praised it's still underrated in some weird way?

possibly because it came out so late in the year when it was released? didn't get the chance to top all the 2014 lists and by 2015 kendrick dropped to pimp a butterfly, the other album of the decade

i think black messiah has aged better, tbh