Outstanding new record by elusive neo-soul icon
When D’Angelo (Michael Eugene Archer) left the music scene after the release of 2000’s Voodoo, for reasons both personal and very public, fans anxiously awaited his return with doubts that he would in the first place. Though he had appeared on numerous features, such as J Dilla’s The Shining and Q-Tip’s The Renaissance, to name a few, he had largely stayed out of the public eye until the past few years.
Initially slated for a January release, and dropped early (Dec. 15) to stay relevant with the controversial rulings on the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner later in 2014, Black Messiah is a culminating project of sorts. D’Angelo truly did take most of his 14-year hiatus to write, arrange, and record the album, with the help of Questlove (The Roots) and Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest), and session bassist Pino Palladino, among others. And it shows. It really shows.
“I’m talking about the Jesus of the Bible, with hair like lamb’s wool! I’m talking about that good hair! I’m talking about that nappy hair!” a preacher hollers in a sample on the second track, “1000 Deaths.” This urgency, in tandem with the chaotic grit-funk of the track’s instrumental texture (also found in the tracks “Prayer” and “Ain’t That Easy”) is made all the more jarring by D’Angelo’s decision to release the album in the wake of the controversial rulings on the deaths of Brown and Garner. This album is so now, it’s almost painful.
But that’s what D’Angelo and co. want us to feel. Its aesthetic is indeed rooted in the past successes of landmarks such as Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On, Miles Davis’ On the Corner, and Prince’s Sign O’ The Times. Its urgency is relevant, but never overbearing – you can dance your ass off and ponder its context at more or less the same time.
At the album’s centre, the upbeat and cheerful “Sugah Daddy” and the sombre, sexy “Really Love,” are where D’Angelo wears his stirring emotional state on his sleeve the most clearly. Juxtaposing soulful, sensitive musical and lyrical material with a more brazen, ferocious vein of funk and soul is a characteristic of the album that carries its weight – the whole thing balances frustration and elation with impeccably tasteful musicianship, and is produced with a masterful ear and an empathetic heart.
Any way you look at it – for its social relevance, breathtaking orchestration, or what have you – Black Messiah is one of the finest, strongest albums of 2014, and probably the rest of the decade. It encapsulates something important, personal, political, and darkly beautiful. Happiness and lament are a product of the same mind, and D’Angelo urges us to consolidate this – for the betterment of ourselves and the social contexts we find ourselves in.