Music

Album review: D’Angelo makes an epic return with ‘Black Messiah’

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Tenacious D: D’Angelo’s back, and he’s still funky.
Denise Truscello, WireImage

D'Angelo and the Vanguard Black Messiah

Four and a half stars

Black Messiah is so sonically rich, dense and intricate, it was almost worth the 15-year wait. It sounds like it took a lifetime to assemble—it was recorded over several years—yet it somehow perfectly follows D’Angelo’s previous record, the equally funky Voodoo. What might his music sound like if he’d cranked out several albums over these years? Or did D’Angelo need to endure the trials of his long exile in order to craft Black Messiah?

Those are only a few of the questions that spring to mind after several listenings of this masterpiece, originally set for release next year but bumped up by the artist’s need to use his music to comment on our current national unrest. Others include: How does D’Angelo manage to drizzle pure pleasure into our brains while using serious, politically charged lyrics? How does he go so smoothly from “1000 Deaths,” with its fiery Malcolm X speech intro, to “The Charade,” an uplifting, modern Prince power jam? How does he make old-timey horns on “Sugah Daddy” and twangy blues picking on “The Door” sound so fresh? How jealous was André 3000 when he first heard the viscous thump and liquid phantom guitars on “Prayer?”

Voodoo crystallized the neo-soul movement of its era, but today, there’s nothing like Black Messiah. It’s too confident and diffuse to be compared. All we can do is listen and learn and enjoy.

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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of managing editor at Las Vegas Weekly ...

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