<\/p>\n
D\u2019Angelo and Questlove were sitting on a couch in a swanky hotel watching, or rather,\u00a0microscoping\u00a0a video of James Brown\u00a0performing in\u00a01964.\u00a0D and Quest\u00a0observed every gesture, each dance step and light cue,\u00a0and anytime the Godfather of Soul subtly signaled\u00a0the band to do something.<\/p>\n
This\u00a0scene transpired\u00a025 years ago. I was in the room\u00a0covering D\u2019Angelo for Rolling Stone<\/a>. He was,\u00a0at that moment, one of the hottest artists in the world. His sophomore album, Voodoo<\/a>,\u00a0had\u00a0established him as\u00a0an undeniable\u00a0musical genius.\u00a0It was the zenith of the modern soul genre \u2014 deep, powerful,\u00a0sexual, sensual, and intimate. It was precisely what drew so many to soul music:\u00a0an album of long, dirty grooves, falsetto\u00a0serenades, and\u00a0gut-tickling bass.\u00a0And it wasn\u2019t just music, it was\u00a0D\u2019s declaration of\u00a0war over the future of music.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n D\u2019Angelo told me this is how\u00a0he\u00a0saw\u00a0it: Music was becoming\u00a0overly\u00a0commercial,\u00a0and\u00a0Voodoo\u00a0was an attempt\u00a0to push artists away from\u00a0that\u00a0towards\u00a0following\u00a0the voice inside \u2014\u00a0wherever it led. Voodoo was also meant to get Prince\u2019s attention, with the hope of convincing the Purple One to collaborate with D and Quest\u00a0on\u00a0an album \u2014 essentially, to serve as an audition for Prince \u2014 but that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n D\u00a0was on top of the world \u2014\u00a0a\u00a0bonafide\u00a0superstar\u00a0musician \u2014\u00a0and\u00a0even\u00a0still\u00a0he was\u00a0sitting there\u00a0studying the greats\u00a0like a hopeful student.\u00a0Not just\u00a0Brown,\u00a0but also Stevie Wonder, Prince, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye \u2014 the soul music canon, in a sense. They called these predecessors\u00a0\u201cYodas,\u201d and the videos were called \u201ctreats.\u201d\u00a0That day Questlove said to\u00a0D, \u201cWhat would your life be like if you hadn\u2019t seen that George Clinton\u00a0treat?\u201d D answered: \u201cTotally different.\u201d<\/p>\n Watching him hyper-analyze\u00a0older musicians\u00a0helped me understand some of\u00a0where\u00a0D\u2019s greatness came from. He was a serious student of his craft, and\u00a0a hard worker, even though he was\u00a0amazingly gifted.\u00a0In fact, he was so naturally talented from such an early age that his older brother told me they never thought D would be anything but a musician.<\/p>\n D\u00a0grew up playing in a pentecostalist church in Virginia and\u00a0went to New York City\u00a0in search of a record deal\u00a0as a teenager\u00a0as part of a\u00a0trio. The label said,\u00a0we\u00a0only\u00a0want him. His\u00a0debut album, Brown Sugar, put everyone on notice: there was a new soul giant in town.\u00a0His single of the same name, a cheeky back-and-forth about his love of marijuana, was among the top songs of that summer in 1995. But\u00a0some felt\u00a0it was a project left unfinished,\u00a0as if the songs were more like sketches.\u00a0Five\u00a0years later,\u00a0D\u00a0erased all of that\u00a0with\u00a0his second album, Voodoo.\u00a0It was a towering achievement\u00a0that made it\u00a0clear that he was not only a disciple of soul\u00a0legends,\u00a0he was\u00a0their peer as well.<\/p>\n But Voodoo\u00a0led to\u00a0a problem.<\/p>\n The song \u201cUntitled (How Does It Feel)<\/a>\u201d was D\u2019Angelo\u2019s masterwork:\u00a0a swirling groove of erotic funk so hot you could get pregnant just by hearing it.\u00a0His manager, Dominick\u00a0Trenier, envisioned a video where D was alone on a stage\u00a0with\u00a0the camera\u00a0giving\u00a0us closeups of his incredible body \u2014 from his cornrows to just below his belly button.\u00a0It would be simple, and sexual, and powerful. This would be the culmination of years of work on his body. When D dropped\u00a0Brown Sugar\u00a0he\u00a0was overweight. In the\u00a0five\u00a0years after, as he worked on\u00a0Voodooo, he changed his diet and trained obsessively. When it was time to shoot the\u00a0\u201cUntitled\u201d\u00a0video,\u00a0D looked as fit as a human could\u00a0possibly\u00a0be. But he didn\u2019t want to do\u00a0the video. His limo pulled up outside the shoot, and he refused to get out. He was nervous.\u00a0Trenier\u00a0came out and sat with him until finally he felt ready.<\/p>\n They went in and created one of the most iconic videos of all time.\u00a0The video hit the culture like a neutron bomb and titillated everyone. Was this the best-looking man alive? Maybe.\u00a0The visual alone gave D\u2019Angelo an even bigger profile. But\u00a0here comes the\u00a0rub:\u00a0after\u00a0\u201cUntitled,\u201d\u00a0people began to see the singer differently. At his shows, fans screamed for him to take his shirt off.\u00a0That was\u00a0acceptable,\u00a0but he wanted to be seen as a musician.<\/p>\n D had studied music like a graduate student and then spent\u00a0five\u00a0years working on Voodoo. He wanted it all to be about songs \u2014 to convey that he was a great musician \u2014 but they were screaming so loud for his abs that you couldn\u2019t hear the music. He\u00a0felt like he\u2019d\u00a0been\u00a0demoted from genius\u00a0to sex symbol. He rebelled\u00a0by disappearing.\u00a0We spent years missing him.\u00a0His third and final album, Black Messiah, came out in 2014, more than a decade later. <\/p>\n Voodoo remains a towering achievement. It will be remembered as a powerful source of inspiration for so many, proving he may have persevered in the war he took on so bravely. D\u2019Angelo reminded people that you can be successful by listening to your muse, ignoring industry trends, and giving the people innovative music.<\/p>\n Now, D\u2019Angelo is gone, and when I hear his progeny \u2014\u00a0artists like\u00a0Frank Ocean,\u00a0HER,\u00a0and SZA \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s like watching\u00a0beautiful\u00a0flowers\u00a0bloom from\u00a0the\u00a0musical\u00a0seeds he\u00a0planted. All of which is to say, in the long game, he won.<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" D\u2019Angelo and Questlove were sitting on a couch in a swanky hotel watching, or rather,\u00a0microscoping\u00a0a video of James Brown\u00a0performing in\u00a01964.\u00a0D and Quest\u00a0observed every gesture, each dance step and light cue,\u00a0and anytime the Godfather of Soul subtly signaled\u00a0the band to do something. This\u00a0scene transpired\u00a025 years ago. I was in the room\u00a0covering D\u2019Angelo for Rolling Stone. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1980536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[394252,394265,352118,314737,387657],"class_list":["post-2091523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-brown-sugar","tag-dangelo","tag-james-brown","tag-rolling-stone","tag-soul-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/A-Recording-of-Jerry-Garcias-Final-Show-Has-Never-Been.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2091523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2091524,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091523\/revisions\/2091524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1980536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2091523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2091523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2091523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}