He touched our souls deeper than the imagination. He made our hearts pure again, and he caressed us with his smooth, slurred lyrics that only he could have captivated us with. His name is Michael "D’Angelo" Archer, better known to the world as just D’Angelo – one of the most precious gifts to the world of R&B. It’s been four years since he crooned his mega-hit "Brown Sugar," from his debut album of the same title. That album stimulated our minds and rejuvenated our souls. He took us to a place where few had only tried to take us.
A few things have occurred in D’Angelo’s life since then. He changed record labels, leaving Universal and joining Virgin, where his labelmates became a list of talented and gifted artists like himself, such as Janet Jackson, Madonna and Lenny Kravitz. "The time was necessary. I needed freedom to experiment – to do what my heart and guts told me to do." So, somewhere in between those four years, D’Angelo recorded his sophomore album, Voodoo. "I had to shut everything out. It took me two years to write and record it," he says. "People are treating music today like an assembly line. It takes time to evolve and to grow." And, time is what he took. The birth of Voodoo coincides with the birth of his son, Michael, who he describes as being the driving inspiration behind the album – an album that his fans have anxiously been waiting for. "It’s a labor of love. It’s a musical journey that I’ve been on for the past two years." D’Angelo says. "It’s a musical expression of a personal testimony. A lot of the songs are about my 3-year-old son, Michael."
His music is like an addiction leaving you wanting more and more of his "funkdafied" and sultry style. As far as having fears about coming back into the game after a four-year absence, D’Angelo had none. "I know that what I’m doing is different than the norm. I’m at peace with it," he says. "I’m very proud about what I did. This album is a big statement. It is very different."
D’Angelo always manages to make statements that immediately grab your attention. He left us craving for more of his "brown sugar," but now he welcomes us into his world on a deeper level with Voodoo. His funky grooves, smooth melodies and flirtatious lyrics will take you to the club just as easy as to the bedroom. With songs like "Left and Right" and "Untitled," D’Angelo is guaranteed to do whatever he managed to do to us on the first album. This time, it’s just a much stronger dosage of love, passion and desire, something that he gives us long, hard and completely. But, it was the bluesy slow jam, "Send It On," that inspired D’Angelo to go in the studio to record Voodoo, shortly after the birth of his son.
There are always certain songs you like on an album, but it’s really hard not to like everything that comes from the sexy lips of D’Angelo. From the slow grooves, and the rhythm and the blues to the sweaty blue lights in the basement jams – he sends you in a frenzy. "My favorite song on the album is ‘The Root.’ It’s just everything about it – the colors that I see when I hear it," D’Angelo says. "It’s about a love affair I was in with this woman. The song is depressing, because I was in such a state."
Writing and producing the entire album takes D’Angelo to higher ground. "You’re in for a treat. Don’t expect what you saw before. It’s soulful and funky." His experience with recording Voodoo at the famed Electric Lady Studios, built by the late Jimi Hendrix, was simply amazing. "It became like a second home for me." Hendrix’ voice is the first sound you hear on Voodoo. The rest is pure music that has picked up where Marvin Gaye left off.
Listening to D’Angelo puts you in the mood for black love, black folks (as he would say), and just being at home. And, speaking of love, D’Angelo has learned a lesson, or two. "Trust is very, very important in a relationship – in love. To find love is wild. Love is God. The worst thing is when you’re involved with someone, and you’re not communicating like you should. You need to open up to that person and be totally free," he says. "And, it’s okay for that person to see your vulnerable side, but it takes the right woman for me to drop that guard." D’Angelo describes his ideal wife as being compassionate, understanding, intelligent, independent and having real domestic qualities. "I want to be able to take her to the White House or to the ghetto knowing she’ll know how to handle herself. And, she has to be able to cook," he laughs. "I love soul food – catfish and grits, fried chicken, mustard collard greens and macaroni and cheese." Not bad for this Virginia native, who had me promising him a home-cooked, "soul food" meal on our first date.
During D’Angelo’s time out of the musical spotlight, he was still very active and creative. He worked with David Sandborn, Eric Clapton, Lauryn Hill and B.B. King. "I also got to jam with Prince," D’Angelo laughs. On Voodoo, he worked with a lot of great musicians, including jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove, Raphael Saadig, Charlie Hunter, bassist Pino Palladino and Grammy Award-winning Lauryn Hill. "Lauryn is a beautiful spirit – very warm. It was just a natural thing," he says. D’Angelo is also a great musician in his own right, playing such instruments as the drums, keyboards, guitar and bass. Let’s not forget that piano that raptured us on "Brown Sugar."
He has matured far beyond his 24 years on this earth. He loves the sound of old school, featuring people like Sly & the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, The Ohio Players and Bill Withers. "I don’t have a problem with sampling. I have a problem with people looping over old records. Sampling can be an art within itself," D’Angelo explains.
So, whether you’re at home, at the club or at one of his concerts, he makes you feel so right. His music gives us what we’ve been wanting all along – the real thing!
Voodoo aims to sound more like the work of a superman. A mammoth 78-minute statement of how far ahead D'Angelo is, this is on a higher, untouchable plain, miles above the competition. Judging by the four-page polemic that opens the liner notes, wherein an unnamed scribe (Saul Williams, though surely with the approval of D'Angelo himself) slams D'Angelo's contemporaries, he knows it - and when he says "glitter and glamour… has dominated most successful black artistry of recent years… I find my peers more inspired by an artist's business strategy than their artistry", we know exactly who he means. In the four years this took to make, Puffy and his minions have taken black music into the mainstream, and into creative bankruptcy. They've made it look like cynical, money-driven recycling - here D'Angelo offers himself as the standard-bearer for a "new sound", and Voodoo as that renaissance's bible.
This record's best moments are up to the job, and then some. The first blast of genius is the awesomely authoritative Devil's Pie, one of many skittish, muscly jams, with rumbling drums and bass that sound like a commandment being delivered. Don't turn it up loud - it'll fuck your speakers. Even better is Chicken Grease, sparse and almost robotic funk, dark and irresistible - like much of the album, it sounds muffled and horizontally doped at first, until after a few plays it's injected itself into your bloodstream and started to sound like the future.
There's a balance to the precise nu-funk - the soul of this album belongs to Angie Stone, D'Angelo's lover and co-writer (and solo artist in her own right). She haunts the album's tender, reflective side - like the heartbreakingly fine One Mo' Gin, a sweetly despairing ballad, D on his own remembering an unsurpassed ex ("I miss your smile, your mouth, your laughter/I never bumped into your kind before or after"). Then there's Untitled (How Does It Feel), the most amazing track of a stunning collection. D'Angelo was pulling no punches making Untitled the lead-up single for this LP - accompanied by an almost dangerously erotic video, it's powerfully sexy and the sort of thing (to use what's now a cliché) that The Artist would kill to still be able to write. Specifically, it shares with classic Prince the ability to come up with quirky, original phrases that sound easy and natural; the sort of atmosphere where lines like "I'd love to make you wet inbetween your thighs" aren't out of place; and some extraordinary falsettos, screams and harmonies, especially during the cruelly guillotined fade-out, and 90 seconds in when D'Angelo rides up an impossibly high scale: "I-uh-huh-hah-huh-ah-I… just wanna be your man."
If D'Angelo sometimes indulges himself on record (at least one of The Line, Send It On or Greatdayandamornin' could have been safely cut) and is only too aware of his prowess, both are justified by Voodoo. On this evidence, D'Angelo is something close to a god.
‘Let em tell you about this girl/ Maybe I shouldn’t/ I met her in Philly and her name was Brown Sugar/ See we be makin’ love constantly/ That’s why my eyes are a shade blood burgundy.../ Oh Sugar when you’re close to me/ You love me right down to my knees/ And whenever you let me hit it/ Sweet like honey when it comes to me/ Skin is caramel with those cocoa eyes/ Even got a big sister by the name of Chocolate Thai/ Brown Sugar babe, I gets high off your love/ I don¹t know how to behave...’
After hearing the song ‘Brown Sugar,’ by the multi-talented artist who calls himself D’Angelo, I had to think to myself, what could this brother be talking about? The poetry of the lyrics and the mood of the song are too sly for him to just be talking about some lady he likes a lot. I heard the song only one more time before I was able to answer the question, ‘What is D’Angelo’s underlying meaning to the song ‘Brown Sugar’?’
As I came to the conclusion, I felt stupid that I had not realized his meaning the first time I heard the song. To make a long story even longer, I’ll simplify the answer like this: Rick James called his honey Mary Jane; Peter Tosh wanted to legalize and liberate his girl; The Pharcyde all liked some girl named Soulflower; Cypress Hill receives her love in packages of ounces through the mail; Guru and Premiere (of the group Gangstarr) refer to their women as Boom cause they provide mental relaxation; and the one and only Bob Marley has at least 100 songs about his sweetheart. Yes, unless you’re social unaware, you know that all these guys are making love and affection with the women commonly known as marijuana. D’Angelo is the latest fella to shack up, spend the night making love, and write an ode to this woman.
He does so in a fashion that makes you want to meet this girl too (that is, if you don¹t already know her pretty well.) D’Angelo’s freshman album, entitled Brown Sugar, represents more than just a guy who likes to roll a blunt and get lifted. D’Angelo is a chocolate complete brother who establishes himself as a critical, intelligent, complex thinking young black man.
It’s beautiful to see a dark-skinned black male come across the scene with the grace, style, and sexiness to make the girlies scream his name – ‘D’Angelo’- and the musical integrity, poetic soul, and street sensibility to make the brothers say, ‘Shit is phat!’
I personally would describe D’Angelo as a young heart with an old soul. The reason why I say this is because his style of soul and R&B takes you back to the essence of this type of music.
Unlike the majority of R&B artists presently on the air waves, D’Angelo chooses to use actual electric and acoustic instruments on his tracks, whereas many other popular artists today use sampling and beat machines.
On the back of the album are written the credits: composed, written, arranged, produced and performed by D’Angelo. This is pretty damned amazing to me. Within each song there is an extremely complicated and compelling arrangement for both the instruments and the vocals.
On one of my personal favorites, ‘When We Get By’, D’Angelo supplies a jazzy tempo and instrumental flavor that seems to be simply a backdrop for an incredible six-part vocal arrangement that is sung throughout the song and is all performed by him.
One thing I noticed he does on this song, and on many others, is sing in over the top of the music in a falsetto that you swear on your life could be the voice of TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince). It’s an enchanting ballad.
On selections like ‘Jonz In My Bonz’, ‘Sh*t, Damn, Motherf*cker’, and ‘Cruisin’ (a beautifully successful homage and cover of the great Smokey Robinson), D¹Angelo wins you over quickly with his instrumentals and interesting sounding voice.
On ‘Cruisin’ in particular, he does justice to Smokey and Motown in a big way, yet still adds his own touch to the piece ‹ he sounds like Smokey Robinson would if he were baked or high out of his mind!
Another personal favorite is ‘Lady’, which features Rafeal Saadiq of the group Tony, Toni, Toné. The bass in this song is amazing.
D’Angelo also flips tha scrip and shows his true musical versatility on the song ‘Higher’ (it’s not about drugs) in which he incorporates a modern gospel sound into the song. Because of his amazing musical abilities (both vocal and instrumental), his dreamy yet sharp urban poetry, his laid-back style, and his smooth character, D’Angelo increasingly reminds me of a young Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye (a pretty good class of fellas, I’d say!).
However, I appreciate D’Angelo most because he does take R&B back to the old school. He takes it away from the lovey-dovey, commercial dance image side and returns it to urban and universal concern and awareness, street smart, genuine affection, soulful, and reality based yet imaginative side: which, if you ask me, is what rhythm and blues are all about.
There’s just something about this chocolate complexioned man that makes the girls scream D’Angelo! and the brothers yell, 'Damn! Did you hear what he said? He said, Sip some chocolate lemonade. Rewind that shit! Shit is phat!'
D’ANGELO wants you to feel what he's feeling. Whether feel pleasure from the soulful vibes of his hit CD Voodoo or excited by the 26-year-old's raw sexuality, D'Angelo wants you to take it stroll through his life and experience a few beats from his heart. "My work is a part or my life," the Richmond, Va., native says. "Each song is a page out or my day."
After half a decade, out of the spotlight, Michael (D'Angelo) Archer is back--flexing his well-toned musical muscles and stirring up the ladies with his unique tenor voice and lyrical styling reminiscent of the thoughtfulness of Marvin Gaye, the coolness of Curtis Mayfield and the urgency of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.
D'Angelo has the delightful combination that creates "cool" talent, style and sultry good looks that excite the Sisters and generate envy among the Brothers.
The musician who found his shot at fame during the amateur competition on the legendary Showtime at the Apollo has Sisters thrilled because he is the entire package--a multilayered musician with tattooed, rippling muscles and a sense of the type of music people want to hear.
After he burst onto the scene in 1995 with his double-platinum debut album Brown Sugar, the fans and the music world eagerly awaited what the gifted musician would come up with next. The pressure to finish the second CD was almost stifling at times, and when several release dates came and went, people began to wonder if D'Angelo was hitting a permanent writing wall. "I felt pressure," he says, and he wrote about it on a song called "The Line" on his latest CD. "But I held on. It was important for me to hold on to what I was believing in, to what I was thinking about. I was just trying to make some good music, some good songs."
D'Angelo's sophomore effort, Voodoo, was recorded with live instruments at the late Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios in New York's Greenwich Village. It is a delicious blend of blues, soul, jazz, hip-hop and funk that forms what some have called "neo-soul," but what D'Angelo says is just "good music." He is credited with bringing that style to the forefront, paving the way for other artists such as Maxwell, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Macy Gray and his ex-girlfriend Angie Stone. And even "neo-soul" seems inadequate, because on a tune like "Spanish Joint" the singer/songwriter expressively captures a bit of the Latin genre, with the help of Roy Hargrove on trumpet and as co-arranger.
It's his collaborations with other musicians that define D'Angelo's mellow, complete-album sound and has fans anticipating a hot show when a tour kicks off this spring.
If D'Angelo is the fire, then artists like hip-hop drummer Ahmir (?uestlove) Thompson of The Roots, Hargrove, Q-Tip, Method Man, Redman and writer Raphael Saadiq are what make the flames burn brightly.
"There's strength in numbers, especially with what we were doing," says D'Angelo of his collaborators. "We all share like-minded visions, so it's important for us to network, to get together and to talk and vibe and play together.”
"At Electric Lady, we would meet and we would be recording, and you never knew who would drop in ... It's not just me doing this thing, trying to be artistic and make strong, artistic Black music. You've got a lot of cats who are really trying to do that."
It is the blue-light-in-the-basement style that lends D'Angelo's music more credibility. Critics say his work is challenging, rewarding and refreshing, that he's a step or two ahead of everyone else working in the industry today, coming up with new sounds before we even tire of the old ones.
"I'm just trying to do my thing, thinking about Black music and the roots of it all," says D'Angelo, who began playing piano as a youngster in the church and whose talent as a keyboardist, guitar player and all-around instrumentalist infuses all of his work. "Black music is the root of every genre of music. We've created some fly [music]. I'm just trying to make the connection between all of this music that traces itself back to blues and the gospel and everything else."
D'Angelo says he's not a throwback to the `60s and `70s; he's just continuing the work from that time when Black culture and music were changing, edging toward revolution on the backs of masters like Gaye, Mayfield, The Artist, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Miles Davis, George Clinton and Hendrix. "I consider myself very respectful of the masters who came before," says D'Angelo, who divides his time between Richmond and New York. "In some ways, I feel a responsibility to continue and take the cue from what they were doing musically and vibe on it. That's what I want to do. But I want to do it for this time and this generation."
This generation has been hit with a sound that can be computer-generated, cookie-cutter cute and overproduced. By contrast, D'Angelo's work features live instruments. The result is one long "vibe" session that downplays "the hit single" in favor of a context-driven album. D'Angelo says this generation is ready for the change. "I think they're ready because there's been a flood of a certain type of sound--not saying anything against it--but there's been a flood of a certain type of [sound]. I don't think there's been enough music that's approached in a serious manner or that's artistic," says D'Angelo, who worked with Eric Clapton, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu between his albums. "A lot of what's been going on has been in the underground. There really hasn't been a lot of that stuff in the forefront. But because there's been so much excess, people are ready for something different."
The buzz about D'Angelo's re-entry into the spotlight actually started well before the new album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart. Yes, the album has been selling well, but it was the video that had tongues wagging, mouths watering and Sisters wild about their early Christmas present. The singer's visual offering for the second single "Untitled (How Does it Feel)," hit the small screen just in time for the holidays. The video features D'Angelo, shown unclothed from just above the hips, crooning the love song to the camera. Although some viewers say the video is too sexy, D'Angelo says it's just him, the camera and his emotions. His sensuality and spirituality are on display and he leaves everything else to the imagination.
"Well, I want you to feel what I was feeling or try to at least express that," he explains of his unintentional sex appeal. "It's [his sensuality] a part of me. It's always been a part of me. I never thought about it until after the fact. I never really explored it like that. It's not that I never wrote songs like that. They just weren't on Brown Sugar. I just wanted to do a song like that."
And a video like that.
The son and grandson of Holiness Church preachers believes his sensual essence and his status as the object of many women's fantasies aren't at odds with his spirituality.
"It's not a conflict because I know my spirit and my soul," he says. "My relationship with God is really important to me ... But I never claimed to be anything but a man. I'm human and I have desires just like everybody else."
Just like everybody else, D'Angelo's life changed dramatically with the birth of his son, Michael Jr., to singer Angie Stone, his writing partner on his first CD. Although the two aren't together now, they remain friends and partners in raising their son.
The proud father credits Michael's birth just over two years ago with getting the music flowing again, although it's difficult for him to explain how being a father has affected him. He has a second child, a daughter named Imani, who was born last fall. D'Angelo has refused to talk about the child's mother.
"I'm a father now," says the unmarried D'Angelo. "I can't even explain the change that happens with it."
What he has no trouble explaining is the impact he hopes his music will have on his diverse fan base and other artists in the music industry. "Naturally, I want everyone to feel where I'm going. Coming from my perspective as a Black male, I really want to touch my people, first of all. But if anyone can feel it, that's love."
COPYRIGHT 2000 Johnson Publishing Co.
If Michael D'Angelo Archer hadn't been blessed with such tremendous musical talent, he'd have made a great living as a male exotic dancer.
Fortunately for all of us he has a stupendous gift for sonic composition, a knack for flitting into a sensual falsetto with one breath and a smoky, growling tenor with the next.
He has one of the tightest bands in the universe, the Soultronics, who make his songs swagger and swing as he executes moves that would make James Brown wistful for younger days. D'Angelo commands a keyboard with the elevated verve of a church organist, and has a genuine smile that seems unaffected by the multitude of lusty screams that pierce his eardrums at any given moment. He also has the ability to reduce hundreds of women to piles of quivering goo just by ululating "lalalalala." All that, and a sculpted body that just won't quit.
D'Angelo set hearts and flesh aflame Sunday night at his first Seattle show, playing to a near capacity audience at Pier 62 / 63 under a chilly sunset. Or should we say, he played them like so many stringed instruments. Rarely outside of televangelism or a cult compound has someone held such sway over hundreds of people. The mere hint of pulling his tucked-in tank top out of his jeans was enough to send waves of hysteria through the mostly female crowd. Running his thumbs around the waist of his jeans had an even more pronounced effect. By the time he doffed his shirt, it was all over - the ladies had lost their minds.
Grooving on succulent melodies that pulse at once with hip-hop's bounce, funk's dirty grooves and gospel's joy, D'Angelo's 90-minute set was resplendent with free form improvisation. The Soultronics extended most songs, jamming away with jazzy flair on the opening cut "Devil's Pie" and crackling with muted energy on cuts like "Chicken Grease." They often blended songs from the singer's previous multiplatinum album "Brown Sugar" into recent songs from "Voodoo."
Most memorable was a high-spirited version "Feel Like Making Love" that spun down into the raunchy "Jonz in my Bonz," a cut that had the singer down on the ground simulating sex with the floor as the audience wailed itself hoarse.
Nasty as he wants to be, D'Angelo and his band were perfection. That's the secret formula of the singer's success, making his live performances appear to spill along in helter-skelter grooves, all the while remaining completely taut in execution. The band's style follows this premise: All were in black, but each member of the band displayed his or her own funky style. A pimp wielded an ax next to the Shaft-style bass player. The keyboardist dressed as a preacher man, and one of D'Angelo's backup singers masqueraded as a futuristic voodoo priestess, bedecked in feathers, beads and shiny vinyl. D'Angelo's jeans and T-shirt were downright demure in comparison.
Indeed, the singer was the king of composure in comparison with his audience, particularly when he flipped into the audience in the middle of an uproarious rendition of a song whose name we can't print here. Apparently the girls in front wouldn't give him back without a fight, and while the singer made it back to the stage in one piece, the shirt he was wearing was long gone.
It was only a matter of time before someone's underwear came off. During a finale performance of "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" one woman was moved to make a lingerie offering. "Let me through!" she cawed, hoisting some sort of twisted thong as the sea of people parted for her. Her bloomers may have made it to the stage, but D'Angelo either didn't notice or wisely decided not to pick them up.
