CONVERSATIONS WITH D'ANGELO

Looking back at two interviews with the recently deceased soul music star

I believe my first one on one conversation with Michael Archer aka D’Angelo was in an elevator in West Hollywood’s Mondrian Hotel not long after his debut album ‘Brown Sugar’ had been released. He seemed very shy as I awkwardly made small talk. He was being hailed as a the next Prince or Stevie Wonder or something equally hyperbolic. He stuck me as a gifted student of black music culture with vocal and instrumental chops of the highest caliber. However the burden of immediate greatness being thrust upon him by industry people, many of them friends, seemed a heavy weight to place on a head so young.

I was mostly out of the full-time music critic biz at the time of his debut’s release, so I was never compelled to render judgements in print on his work. Whenever I spoke with him, which was infrequently, it was always relaxed. What was clear when we did chat was that D’Angelo was keenly intelligent, not just about music, but black revolutionary thought and religion. I didn’t know many people in the music of his generation who had sharp observations about Bobby Seale AND Curtis Mayfield.

I know a bit about his hometown of Richmond, Virginia since one of my nieces attended college there. There’s a lot of spirituality and talent in that state capitol. But all that is married to a lot of dysfunction and desperation. I’m sure moving to the New York area was creatively liberating but, perhaps, a bit socially overwhelming. It didn’t help that I didn’t know many men outside of athletics that had their body become the subject of so many conversations. Initially his corn rolls and lips sparked desire, while his chubby body was scrutinzed. The video that made him an eight pack sex symbol became an impossible beauty standard that haunted and overshadowed his work. As his noted on his last album his abdomen generated as much head shaking as his absences. For an artist determined to deliver fresh directions and was meticulous about his recording process, it must have been frustrating to be so defined by his outward appearance.

Through my friendship with his then manager Alan Leeds I was able to interview him in my documentary ‘Finding the Funk’ in summer 2012. (It’s available to watch on Amazon.) Subsequently when he agreed to do a Red Bull Academy interview with him in 2014 he requested I lead the conversation. What’s funny about them both is that in we rarely talked directly about his albums or particular songs. My doc was focused on the past and, in directly, on how it impacted his work. For the Red Bull event he requested not to ask questions about music any new music he was making, which irritated many viewers, but did allow us to go deeply into his background and philosophy. I’m very honored that he trusted me enough to sit down with me in front of a camera twice. These kind of conversations, particularly in public, can easily go bad or grind to a halt if there’s no connection. Both are kind of podcast before podcast. I find them awkward for me to listen to, but I think they illustrate the intelligence that supported his musicianship.

[FYI the YouTube post is riddled edits that are the result of copyright strikes. I will endeavor to post the entire interview free of them at some point.]

D’Angelo released three studio albums, though I think some of his finest work was done live and were highlighted by remarkable cover versions of soul classics. His arrangements and vocals remade so many great songs in his image. While his cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Crusin’” is probably his best known cover, I think this is a masterful version of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Can’t Hide Love” from his stellar ‘Live at the Jazz Cafe’ recorded in London.

Later this week I’m going to repost a couple of live recordings who did in New York while I was shooting ‘Finding the Funk.’