Nelson George and D'Angelo in conversation A few days ago saw a very interesting and informative encounter when the musician D'Angelo was interviewed by renowned cultural spokesman Nelson George, in front of a packed audience at the Brooklyn Museum in New York as part of the Red Bull Music Academy. The event billed as "A Conversation With D'Angelo' allowed the normally reclusive artist to open up for roughly an hour and a half on a wide range of subjects, including his very early church beginnings and his forming of a hip hop band called Intelligent, Deadly but Unique (I.D.U. for short). With some pride D'Angelo exclaims, "I was an MC and I was pretty fuckin' good, too. We weren't no joke". He went on to add, "We had a dj whose dad was also a dj and he had a huge record collection. His house was like a record store. That's where I went to school; it was hip hop and music 101. I eventually stopped listening to the record just for the breakbeat and started listening to the whole record."
Other interesting facts come to light during this in depth talk, including learning that D'Angelo, aged only 16 went to New York for the first time to appear on the famous Amateur Night at the Apollo, where he performed Johnny Gill's 'Rub You The Right Way' and at age 20, in 1994, he wrote and produced 'U Will Know' for Black Men United, a star studded collection of African American male r&b/soul artists which included such high profile names as R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Usher, Keith Sweat, Aaron Hall and Brian McKnight among their group. The song would end up on the soundtrack album for the film, 'Jason's Lyric'. One of the paths D'Angelo would like to take in the future actually harks back to his days of singing in the church. "I'm still fascinated by that world," he says, "I definitely want to do a (gospel) quartet album." The overall vibe of the lecture was warm and jovial between the musician and George who managed to elicit some juicy nuggets of information. In an enlightening, but sometimes painfully slow way, D'Angelo offered up his views of where his head was at during the making of his 2 previous albums, 'Brown Sugar' (released 1995) and 'Voodoo' (released 2000). That follow up record, which his fans have been waiting patiently now for 14 years, was never really mentioned, but there was talk of new music on the way. One of the most entertaining aspects of the evening was the inclusion of Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson, all round music connoisseur and drummer of The Roots, who happened to be in the audience. He was brought up on stage and soon had the crowd hooked not only with his knowledge of D'Angelo and the music they had made together, but the obvious love and appreciation they both feel for each other. As D'Angelo said, "That's my brother." In actual fact, the musical bond between Questlove and D'Angelo holds so strong as to strengthen my belief that the elusive follow up to 'Voodoo' will eventually materialize. At the end of the interview I held favourable thoughts for D'Angelo's future. Yes, he has been away a long time, but his musical drive seems far from diminished and I await his next endeavour with much anticipation. Here is your chance to check out this 'conversation' for yourself.
Other interesting facts come to light during this in depth talk, including learning that D'Angelo, aged only 16 went to New York for the first time to appear on the famous Amateur Night at the Apollo, where he performed Johnny Gill's 'Rub You The Right Way' and at age 20, in 1994, he wrote and produced 'U Will Know' for Black Men United, a star studded collection of African American male r&b/soul artists which included such high profile names as R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Usher, Keith Sweat, Aaron Hall and Brian McKnight among their group. The song would end up on the soundtrack album for the film, 'Jason's Lyric'. One of the paths D'Angelo would like to take in the future actually harks back to his days of singing in the church. "I'm still fascinated by that world," he says, "I definitely want to do a (gospel) quartet album." The overall vibe of the lecture was warm and jovial between the musician and George who managed to elicit some juicy nuggets of information. In an enlightening, but sometimes painfully slow way, D'Angelo offered up his views of where his head was at during the making of his 2 previous albums, 'Brown Sugar' (released 1995) and 'Voodoo' (released 2000). That follow up record, which his fans have been waiting patiently now for 14 years, was never really mentioned, but there was talk of new music on the way. One of the most entertaining aspects of the evening was the inclusion of Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson, all round music connoisseur and drummer of The Roots, who happened to be in the audience. He was brought up on stage and soon had the crowd hooked not only with his knowledge of D'Angelo and the music they had made together, but the obvious love and appreciation they both feel for each other. As D'Angelo said, "That's my brother." In actual fact, the musical bond between Questlove and D'Angelo holds so strong as to strengthen my belief that the elusive follow up to 'Voodoo' will eventually materialize. At the end of the interview I held favourable thoughts for D'Angelo's future. Yes, he has been away a long time, but his musical drive seems far from diminished and I await his next endeavour with much anticipation. Here is your chance to check out this 'conversation' for yourself.
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