Ladies and gentlemen, the wait is over. Soul maestro D’Angelo has recorded his first album in 14 years, and you can stream the entire thing right here, right now.
The album is a long-awaited follow up to 2000’s seminal Voodoo, an album which still makes me weak at the knees every time I play through it. It’s one of my favourite neo-soul, R&B albums and a bedroom staple for thousands around the world. It’s remarkable to consider that this is only the third album in the man’s career, coming nearly two full decades after his debut release Brown Sugar. According to TIME, Questlove has called it “The ‘Apocalypse Now’ of black music.”
I’m quite interested by the title, Black Messiah. It’s something you’d expect from Kanye more than anyone else – well, when you consider Yeezus, Black Skinhead, I Am A God and more, it’s pretty much the same thing. But D’Angelo is D’Angelo, and he’s a whole different kettle of fish. D’Angelo has stated that “For me, the title is about all of us. It’s about the world. It’s about an idea we can all aspire to. We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah.”
“It’s about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen.”
The first single Sugah Daddy has just been released as a part of Red Bull’s 20Before15 which we wrote about last week.
Featured guests on the album include The Roots’ Questlove, Parliament/Funkadelic’s Kendra Foster and Q-Tip.