D’Angelo Discusses Black Messiah, Black Lives Matter, Religion on “Tavis Smiley”

On Wednesday night, “The Tavis Smiley Show” aired D’Angelo‘s first TV interview in over 10 years. In the first of a two-episode interview series, he discussed his new album Black Messiah, his musical idols (especially Prince), the break between albums, how his religious upbringing informs his music, and much more. Watch it below. Update 7:41 p.m.: The second half of the interview is now available to watch as well. 

Smiley began the conversation by asking D’Angelo what he felt his upper register conveyed. “Sensitivity,” he replied. “I’m a big fan of Prince and Curtis Mayfield and Smokey Robinson. There’s something to be said about a man who can be very masculine but still display that sensitive side.”

They talked at length about D’Angelo’s relationship with the Pentecostal Church. “It totally informs everything I do,” D’Angelo said. “When I go on the stage, I bring that with me.” He said part of the Vanguard’s live routine just before taking the stage is to sing spirituals (like “Old Ship of Zion”) and pray.

He talked about how many of his favorite artists similarly tap into their spiritual instincts when they perform. “It’s one of the things that I admire in my favorite artists that I really look to like Prince, James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament Funkadelic, George Clinton—that’s what was happening.” He also talked about how regularly as a kid, women at church tried to scare him away from playing music outside of the church. He credited his grandmother for encouraging him to pursue secular music.

Smiley asked him if he ever had self-doubt. “Yes, especially in the beginning when you’re trying to find your own voice.” He took a long pause. “Shortly after I got signed, it started to dawn on me that I had something to say and Yahweh put something in my heart to share with the world. Once you have that conviction, the fear don’t mean nothin’—it’s just a thing.”

When asked about what he was doing during the period between albums, D’Angelo replied, “I’m always writing and learning. It’s about growth. I’m growing as a musician, as a guitarist. You never want to be at a place where you feel like you’ve arrived. It’s always an upward incline.”

They also discussed Black Messiah. D’Angelo said he worried that he’d “come off as preachy” on the album and instead wanted to be “a voice of the people.”

Black Messiah is, I think, the most sociopolitical stuff I’ve done on record. I think in lieu of everything that’s been going—the sign of the times, right—something needs to be said. There’s so few doing that right now, and that was funny to me because there’s so much going on. The Black Lives Matter movement is going on, young black men and women are getting killed for nothing. I’ve always been a big reader and fan of history, and I love the Black Panthers. … I’m not trying to be like a poster child or anything of the movement, but definitely a voice as a black man—as a concerned black man and as a father, as well.

Smiley asked if D’Angelo felt that music had the power to change things the way it did during the Civil Rights Movement. “Absolutely,” he replied. “That’s the frustrating thing about it, because music never loses that power, but the powers that be—the bean counters, the execs—they just want to make money and stick to a certain formula that makes money.”

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