Where do I even begin about this album? I’m not going to act like I literally waited around all almost 15 years, because I got into D’Angelo after the fact (years after the fantastic Voodoo), but on the real - I actually had no faith in this album seeing the light of day. It is a miracle in itself that I am even typing about it right now (I say this half sarcastically and half seriously). Take out his two classic albums and D’Angelo would be the original Jay Electronica - loads of talent, long wait, media hype, quotes from other famous people, but no albums. People who follow D’Angelo, especially people who have posted on Okayplayer forums over the years, probably know the story all too well by now. Once upon a time a dude named D’Angelo released two fantastic records, these albums were really good - like really fucking good. His musical chops combined with a certain music video made him ridiculously famous. Maybe he struggled with the fame, maybe he struggled with being seen as a sex symbol - who really knows. Moving on, there was talk, rumors, whatever about the greatly anticipated third album, with the world of people who enjoy R&B/Soul patiently waiting. This was apparently a lot of people by the way, as the reaction on the internet/on Itunes to this album has been overwhelmingly positive.
Anyway, over the years, Questlove said many things, some of them probably (definitely) being hyperbole. Take this quote for example “[on D’Angelo’s guitar playing] I think in his head, if he doesn’t surpass Eddie Hazel, Santana, James Blood Ulmer and Frank Zappa as an axeman, he doesn’t want to share it with the world.” Now, anyone who has listened to this record, which features lots of D’ playing guitar, knows he isn’t seeing literally any of the people who Questlove named in that quote. Despite that, can we really blame Quest for attempting to hype up (this quote was said to Rollingstone in 2012) a record which he at the time probably already knew was going to be this good? As ridiculous as those comparisons are, after listening to this album an unhealthy amount of times, I’m not really sure if we can really be mad at Quest for hyping the album because this album has done the one thing that albums with meteoric hype behind them rarely actually do - it fucking delivered. They essentially semi-Beyonce’d us, by dropping "Sugah Daddy", a song that is fantastic - extremely funky, but is actually my least favorite song on the album, making us (or at least me) think that it was just a teaser to hold us over for the next X months we were supposed to wait for this album. Then all of a sudden there was a Questlove tweet, confirming what we all believed to be the unconfirmable and around 12 hours later I had a physical copy of Black Messiah in my hands (I had to get the physical to believe it), it was all kind of unreal really. How did this album not leak, like, not even news of this album, if stores (I bought mine at FYE the day of its release) probably already had the physical copy in advance anyway?
Think about it. Take all of this out of context for a second - essentially this motherfucker, well no, let's include Questlove too - these motherfuckers, made the general public wait almost 15 years for something. I’m not saying since D’ had already put out two albums he owed me, as a listener, another one, but come on, this is a special case. There was a ridiculous amount of media teasing by Quest. We knew there were new songs! Just go on youtube, you can find live versions of “Really Love” and “Another Life” from 2012. Shit, people on Okayplayer now know that the most recent song on this was written sometime in 2010 (thank you Questlove for that Q&A post, that was dope)! I’m pretty sure Quest told the media this album was finished at least two or three years ago. We know all of this, yet no one (outside of RYM, I'm sure there is someone mad here, there always is) seems to be mad at all, and that is because this is a(nother) D’Angelo masterpiece, on par with the quality of his first two albums. Vocally he is more or less the same - his voice is fantastic, so fantastic that in the following paragraphs I probably won’t even mention it that much (I’d run out of adjectives). D’Angelo has switched up his style a little bit though, the most obvious point being a much bigger focus on the guitar work. Various parts of this album sound much more “heavy” (used for the lack of a better word), than anything on the first two D’Angelo albums.
The first vocals that the listener is hit with on this record come from "Ain’t That Easy", a cut that reminds me of things like Funkadelic and Sly & The Family Stone. The first lines just made me say “Damn, D’s back”. I imagine that's what getting hit with a tidal wave of soul feels like, just extremely powerful, layered vocals. I have no idea if that's all D’ or if it’s multiple people and I don’t care, it sounds extremely dope. Though whatever was going on in “Ain’t That Easy” could not have prepared me for "1000 Deaths". I now understand what Questlove was getting at when he said this record was a “180” from past work, because I honestly never imagined D’Angelo doing a song with anything close to the raw energy this cut has. The drums and the bass that drive this song are ridiculously dope and the vocal sample gives the beginning of the track an urgent, almost chaotic atmosphere that is maintained throughout the song. The next track is "The Charade", which honestly sounds like something Prince might’ve done in a different life. The first time I heard “The Charade” I thought it would be my favorite song in the album, because I love everything about it this song, especially how the bridge builds into the chorus and how it kind of explodes with soul near the 2 minute mark, but I didn’t know what kind of album I was getting into at the time.
Then comes “Sugah Daddy”, which I already mentioned in an earlier paragraph, so let's move on to "Really Love". I guess I should probably start off by saying this is my favorite song on the album. Never ever did I imagine hearing a spanish flamenco intro to a D’Angelo song (don’t point to "Spanish Joint", the style of guitar playing is ridiculously different). What a gorgeous way to open up a song though, the transition from the strings to the flamenco guitar with the spanish vocals in the background (querías ser mi dueño/pero yo soy libre; you wanted to own me/but I am free) is just ridiculous.The rest of the song is stunning as well, featuring more great string arrangements, some horns and even a harp in the background, but that intro floors me every single time. After this, we find ourself with the first half of a song called “Back To The Future” (it was a really good idea to separate it, the sequencing works perfectly), which is a song that is lyrically heavy on Nostalgia (obviously). "Part 1"(which is track 6) acts as a complete song and "Part II" (which is track 11) acts as an extremely funky reprise that leads the listener into the final song of the album. Although it isn’t Eddie Hazel (lol), I find myself really enjoying the guitar playing on both of these tracks.
The next track is "Till It’s Done (Tutu)" a track Questlove said was one of his favorite songs on the album, due to its dope chord progression. In particular I love the way it ends - that little switch up in the last 30 seconds is great. I feel like lyrically, this is one of the strongest songs on the album and I’m not just saying this because it is one of the clearest songs on the album in terms of being able to tell exactly what D’ is saying (D’mumblo is kinda sorta in full effect at times on this album, people have pointed it out, we have to acknowledge it - sometimes it’s hard to grasp the exact words the man is saying - whatever). Throughout the song D’ asks questions about war, pollution and the human race in general. Next up is by far the most odd track on the album, probably my third favorite overall "Prayer". The guitar licks that constantly play near the end of the verses on this track make it amazing and the gong that occasionally sounds off really helps give it the creepy, spiritual vibe that I imagine D’ was shooting for here. I’d love to hear this live, because it fades out with an extremely dope guitar solo. Amazing stuff.
The next track "Betray My Heart", is driven by some extremely clean, dope guitar playing. Gone are the effects that were all over guitars we heard in tracks like “Ain’t That Easy” or “Prayer”. I don’t know the name for this type of sound on a guitar, but it reminds me of the clean sounding setting that is often used in jazz guitar albums (think Kenny Burrell, Grant Green). I have no idea if this is D’ playing all of this guitar but if it is, then it is pretty impressive considering that guitar is not his main instrument. "Betray My Heart" is followed by the country/blues-ish sound of "The Door", another song that sounds little like anything in the rest of D’Angelo’s small discography. I really can’t say I would’ve ever imagined him doing anything that even sounds a little bit like this song, yet it just all sounds so effortless (though we know it’s not….15 years). After the second part of “Back to the Future”, we (unfortunately) reach the end of the album, with what would be my favorite track if “Really Love” wasn’t ridiculous, "Another Life". This track is crazy, I’d say that vocally it is probably the strongest track on the album. The entire second half of this song just a D’ (and the rest of the Vanguard?) spazzing out in what eventually turns into a vocal call and response. The way the different voices interact with each other near the end of the song really ends this album of highs on an extreme high. I’m talking about around the 4 minute 15 second mark - damn.
Anyway, that is why Black Messiah is my album of the year, despite going a good portion of the year thinking no one would top Flying Lotus. Recently I’ve listened to this Brown Sugar and Voodoo back to back and I can’t even tell which one I like more. This means I’ll probably be listening to this album for an extremely long time. I’d use the c-word, but it just came out.
