D’Angelo Will Always Be the Blueprint

D’Angelo’s recorded catalog is small, with just three studio albums across almost 30 years. But every one shifted something for R&B. 1995's Brown Sugar reintroduced sensuality to a genre that had been swallowed by commercial gloss. It felt analog in a way, sounds that defied the machine-made precision of the mid-’90s. Five years later, 2000's Voodoo became a masterpiece that fused the warmth of vintage soul from the ’70s with the grit of hip-hop’s “Golden Age.” And 2014's Black Messiah arrived as a sermon for a fractured America. As Black Lives Matter marched in the streets, D’Angelo emerged from seclusion to deliver protest hymns. 

D’Angelo’s breakout moment, of course, was “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” the six-minute slow jam that turned R&B on its axis. The accompanying video, a single take of D’Angelo’s shirtless torso, became an instant cultural phenomenon, turning him into a reluctant sex symbol and an object of obsession. But the attention also broke him. The artist who wanted to be heard for his voice became famous for his body. The glare of that fame sent him into retreat. For years, D’Angelo disappeared from public view, the myth growing in his absence. But his silence never muted his influence. 

The jazz-soul chords in Daniel Caesar’s “Best Part.” The lonely sway of Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky.” The smoldering minimalism and drive of Dijon’s Absolutely. All of it traces back to D’Angelo. Listen closely to Dijon’s “Big Mike’s” and D’Angelo’s “Untitled”: Their melodies and groove hum in the same key, mirrors of each other.

Leon Thomas’ “Mutt” carries the effortless breeze of D’Angelo’s unreleased gem “I Found My Smile Again.” H.E.R.’s ability to fuse virtuosic musicianship with intimacy, her guitar solos, her band-driven live shows, draws a straight line to his insistence that R&B could still be played, not programmed. And Beyoncé’s “Rocket” and “Superpower” with Frank Ocean feel like love letters to Voodoo’s basslines. Elmiene’s falsetto runs. You get the point: All of this echoes back to the church D’Angelo built.

Even the new wave of experimental soul owes him its pulse. Ravyn Lenae’s lush vocal layering, SiR’s aching despair on “John Redcorn," carry the D’Angelo’s imprint. 

D’Angelo never cared for the term “neo-soul.”

“I respect it for what it is,” he once said, “but anytime you put a name on something, you just put it in a box. You want to be in a position where you can grow as an artist. You never want to be told, ‘Hey, well, you’re a neo-soul artist.’ Right now, I’m not. We’re going someplace else.”

That restless evolution made him an outlier. He insisted on calling what he made “Black music”—not in the exclusionary sense, but in the spiritual one. Music that existed to serve and reflect the culture that birthed it.

At a recent show, Lenae honored him with words that distilled that very philosophy. 

“He really showed me what’s possible with music,” she said onstage. “Staying true to it. Staying Black in it. The best thing we can do is celebrate his life and do that through music tonight.”

D’Angelo’s absence will continue to be felt in every corner of R&B, mostly the idea that soul music could sound ancient and futuristic all at once. He taught a generation that vulnerability was strength, that spirituality and sensuality could and should live in the same hub of music. 

The musicians of today will carry his torch only if they keep doing what D’Angelo did best: breaking form, bending rules, refusing to be formulaic. If they stay fearless enough to make soul music that feels alive, his spirit will never dim.