Reflection: Thank you, Michael “D’Angelo” Archer

Music has always been my first love. I’ve always felt a bond with my favorite artists such as Phyllis Hyman, Luther Vandross, and Whitney Houston. And when they transition, it has always had an effect on me that can only be explained as, they understood what I needed from them musically without even knowing me.

My dad had an extensive record collection. Growing up, he and I used to sit in the basement and listen to the likes of Chaka Khan, Earth, Wind and Fire, and the Isley Brothers for hours. There wasn’t a musical legend that my dad didn’t have a piece of, and he played them all for me to experience. So very early on, I had a musical maturity that allowed me to appreciate music in its purest form. The artists from my dad’s generation were legendary, but they were his artists that I was celebrating and listening to, and not mine.

And then, D’Angelo arrived on the scene.

The first time I heard D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar,” was in high school. I immediately gravitated to his sound. It was old school, but fresh. It was familiar, yet new. It was R&B with funk and soul mixed in. It was all the sounds that my dad had introduced me to as a child. And while I instantly became a fan of his music, it was seeing him live that made me appreciate his artistry at its highest level.

On August 31, 2000, someone had given me tickets for the Voodoo World Tour at Pier Six Pavilion for my 21st birthday. “Voodoo” was D’Angelo’s highly anticipated second album that took five years for him to release, after the success of his debut album, “Brown Sugar.”  I bought the album the day it dropped, so I knew all the songs and was ready to sing along with him. The concert ended up being one of the best shows I had ever been to. What I witnessed from that performance were influences of Prince, James Brown, a dash of Jimi Hendrix, and a garnish of Al Green. These were all artists from my father’s generation that I had grown to love and adore. He was musical perfection. He became Generation X’s musical icon.

While many people clung to “Untitled (How Does it Feel)” and of course, the video, it was always about the music for me. Thanks to my father, I knew what the greats were supposed to sound like, and D’Angelo certainly was under the umbrella of music I had heard from generations past. He was soul. He was funk. He was R&B. He was rock and roll. He played many of his own instruments, and he could perform with the best of them. He was a star. And I wanted more.

Unfortunately, it would take over a decade for him to give us his next masterpiece. According to “Devil’s Pie: D’Angelo,” a documentary he released in 2019, he faced a number of hurdles. For one, the pressure of being the chosen one of his generation. He grew disdainful over being viewed as a sex symbol, and not a musician. And if that weren’t enough, he lost his grandmother, who was his biggest support system, which led to drug and alcohol abuse. All of this created the perfect storm for stepping away from the spotlight for 14 years without releasing new music.

And then “Black Messiah” dropped in December 2014.

Fans were originally critical, saying that “Black Messiah” wasn’t the D’Angelo they knew and loved. But the great thing about artists and their work is they’re allowed to evolve and grow. D’Angelo always wanted us to know him as the artist, the performer, and not the sex symbol we had made him to be.“Black Messiah” solidified that. While people complained about his distorted lyrics and different sound, I always viewed “Black Messiah” as the album that was simply supposed to be about the music, which is all he ever wanted. And if you decided to read the lyrics, you learned why “Black Messiah” was an ode to pro-Blackness, while being the influence for albums like Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly”while being regarded as a major contribution Black musical culture. 

D’Angelo was our generation’s Prince, in the sense that he could write, compose, and play multiple instruments. He was our James Brown because he could perform and keep the crowd captivated, while still putting his fist in the air being Black and proud. He was our George Clinton and our Bootsy Collins, enriching his music in P-Funk basslines. He was our Al Green, as he sang with such soul that even the Baby Boomer generation couldn’t deny him (and no one hates Gen X music more than a Boomer!). He was everything you wanted in an artist and more. 

People might ask, are three albums enough to solidify a legacy? For D’Angelo, the answer is undeniably yes. Three different albums. Three different journeys. Three different decades. All impactful on their first spin. Each has their own sound, their own vibe, their own DNA. But never did they get away from its creator. And while many of us selfishly wanted more, what he gave us was more than enough.

Thank you, Michael “D’Angelo” Archer, for sharing your gifts with the world.