D’angelo & The Vanguard Black Messiah: Review
4.5/5
After 14 years, D’Angelo dropped the much anticipated follow-up to the 2000 classic Voodoo LP called Black Messiah, along with his band, The Vanguard. Anybody that knows me personally, knows that I’m a big D’Angelo fan. So, along with many D’Angelo fans, I was pleasantly surprised when his album dropped in December 15, 2014. In today’s musical landscape, many of the commercial artists have become pitch men/women for corporations. Meaning, they don’t make comments on Ferguson, Paris or Pakistan, but they’ll make sure to promote Versace, Ciroc, Bugattis, as well as “cocoa cocoa” aka cocaine (because they’re on the corporation’s payroll). Furthermore, you don’t even need to know how to play an instrument anymore; you just have to master the latest apple software on beats.
That’s why it’s important to support an artist like D’Angelo; he’s the last of a dying breed. Black Messiah has 12 tracks, and is a fusion of classic soul, psychedelic rock, neo-soul, funk, gospel and jazz. It takes you on a musical journey of African-American music, from the past 60 years. My personal favourite tracks are “Ain’t that easy”, “The Charade”, “Sugah Daddy” and “Prayer”. Okay, I love the whole damn album except maybe two tracks (which will remain nameless). In 95’, D’Angelo was a trailblazer; he was the first R&B artist to rock braids, and single handedly created the neo-soul genre. So, it’s admirable that he stuck to his guns with his musical style in 2015. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares against the new era of R&B stars such as Miguel, The Weeknd and Trey Songz (to name a few). D’angelo can never be counted out; in 95’, he solely shifted R&B from New Jack Swing to Neo Soul. In the track ‘Back to the future’ (part 1) he states, “I just wanna go back, baby Back to the way it was, now, now, now.” 20 years later, time will tell if history repeats it.