D’Angelo Says He’s Working on Black Messiah “Companion Piece”

Photo by Greg Harris

D’Angelo‘s Black Messiah was released last December after a 14-year wait. Now, the singer says he’s at work on “a companion piece” to the record, composed of leftover material from the Black Messiah sessions. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, his first since releasing Black Messiah, D’Angelo said his original plan for the Voodoo follow-up was “longer than what Black Messiah ended up being.”

“What I’m working on now is like a companion piece,” he said. “I hope people receive it that way. It’s part of the same vision.” He also admitted that “if it were left entirely up to me, [Black Messiah] wouldn’t have come out. I had to get out of my head. Because there were so many songs that I wanted people to hear.”

When asked about his plans for the future, he responded, “I want to do what Yahweh is leading me to do. Do I know fully what that is? No, I don’t. I’m trying to keep myself open, my heart open, to receive and to know what that is. But I do want to put a lot of music out there. I feel like, in a lot of respects, that I’m just getting started.”

He was also asked about contemporary hip-hop, and responded “no comment” before expressing admiration for Kendrick Lamar‘s To Pimp a Butterfly. “The timing of both was kind of uncanny — it was almost a sign: Motherfuckers are making some shit that’s relevant to the times,” he said. 

D’Angelo and his band the Vanguard are currently on tour in support of Black Messiah.

D’Angelo and the Vanguard:

06-16 Dallas, TX – The Bomb Factory  
06-17 Houston, TX – The Warehouse  
06-20 Norfolk, VA -Norva  
06-21 Forest Hills, NY – Forest Hills Stadium
06-23 Philadelphia, PA – The Keswick
06-25 Washington, DC – The Fillmore
06-27 Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre  
06-28 Sayreville, NJ – Starland Ballroom
07-03 Gdynia, Poland – Open’er Festival
07-06 Rome, Italy – Parco della Musica
07-07 Milan, Italy – Estathe Market Sound
07-08 Montreux, Switzerland – Montreux Jazz Festival – Stravinsky Hall
07-10 Rotterdam, Netherlands – North Sea Jazz Festival
07-12 Liege, Belgium – Les Ardentes
07-13 London, England – Roundhouse
07-15 Grimstad, Norway – Skral Festival
07-16 Oslo, Norway – Fjord Festival  
07-17 Molde, Norway – Molde International Jazz Festival  
08-07 San Francisco, CA – Golden Gate Park Outside Lands
09-04-06 Chicago, IL – North Coast Music Festival 
11-06-08 Austin, TX – Fun Fun Fun Fest

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