About

D'Angelo established himself as an unwitting founder and leading light of the late-'90s neo-soul movement, which aimed to bring the organic flavor of classic R&B back to the hip-hop age. Modeling himself on the likes of Marvin Gaye, Prince, Curtis Mayfield, and Al Green, D'Angelo exhibited his inspirations not only with his vocal style – albeit with a stoned yet emotive twist all his own but also wrote his own material, and frequently produced it, helping to revive the concept of the all-purpose R&B auteur. His first album, Brown Sugar (1995), gradually earned him an audience so devoted that the looser and rhythmically richer follow-up, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one despite a gap of almost five years, and won that year's Grammy for Best R&B Album. A wait of nearly three times that length preceded the release of the bristlier Black Messiah (2014), a Top Five hit that made D'Angelo a two-time Best R&B Album winner. 

By the mid-'90s, most urban R&B had become rather predictable, working on similar combinations of soul and hip-hop, or relying on vocal theatrics on slow, seductive numbers. With his debut album, Brown Sugar, the 21-year-old D'Angelo crashed down some of those barriers. D'Angelo concentrates on classic versions of soul and R&B, but unlike most of his contemporaries, he doesn't cut and paste older songs with hip-hop beats; instead, he attacks the forms with a hip-hop attitude, breathing new life into traditional forms.

Not all of his music works, there are several songs that sound incomplete, relying more on sound than structure. But when he does have a good song -- like the hit "Brown Sugar," Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'," or the bluesy "Shit, Damn, M*th*rf***er," among several others — D'Angelo's wild talents are evident. One of the most exciting debuts of 1995, giving a good sense of how deep D'Angelo's talents run. — via AllMusic

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Label: Virgin, UMe
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Stereo, White
Reissued: 2024 / Original Release: 1995
Genre: Funk / Soul
Style: Soul, Neo Soul, Contemporary R&B

File under: Contemporary R&B
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