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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
At the age of 20,
Michael D'Angelo Archer
wrote, performed and arranged by himself his debut album,
Brown Sugar (1995), whose musical values
(not last his falsetto crooning) referenced
Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Prince and Stevie Wonder.
D'Angelo, J Dilla and producer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson formed the collective Soulquarians that later included Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove and some of the Native Tongues collective (A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip, Common, Mos Def and Talib Kweli).
Voodoo (2000) further updated the tradition of soul/gospel music to
the technology (but not to the sound) of the hip-hop era (electronics, sampling).
After a hiatus of 14 years, D'Angelo finally returned with
Black Messiah (RCA, 2014), another manic display of
old-fashioned soul music with old-fashioned lyrics.
A bit of social commentary a` la Marvin Gaye or Sly on the Family Stone
(The Charade) represents the main progress that he's managed to
achieve in 14 years.
There is little of note.
Really Love, the standout, fuses flamenco and plantation blues.
1000 Deaths samples a preacher's black-nationalistic sermon over a fast funk beat.
Betray My Heart is a finger-snapping swinging tune worthy of the
doo-wop groups of the 1950s.
The slow, danceable Prayer is hijacked by funeral bells.
The sinister, percussive Back to the Future I segues into the
robotic commercial-like ditty Back to the Future II.
But "boring" doesn't even come close to describing ballads such as
Another Life, Ain't That Easy or Door.
The music is too often so weak, meager, slow, lifeless and soulless
that one wishes he had simply made covers of the classics.
D'Angelo died in 2025 of cancer at the age of 51.
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