Black Messiah Reviews

The first question to ask is: how it confronts the new album of D'Angelo?
Quick and proper to rewind. Michael Eugene Archer, aka D'Angelo is a singer, musician and composer of black music that has made two albums in two decades, two milestones in the field of new soul and R & B. The last - "VooDoo", tagged in 2000 - was a masterpiece in which D'Angelo emerged as a new Marvin Gaye. Since then, the singer's life was a succession of long silences, detoxification, prison, mystical crisis, short tour abruptly interrupted and long studio session in an attempt to follow the record that at the beginning of the new millennium began agree audience and criticism.
The result, postponed several times, has finally come through the strategy of the hard to surprise year-end that is so fashionable today.
But be careful, "Black Messiah" is a thousand miles away from the operation of marketing of Beyonce. No exclusive contract, no sophisticated viral strategy, just a simple party listening in Manhattan organized by Questlove of the Roots which for some years has become a sort of spokesperson-friend-mentor of D'Angelo.
How then ask yourself in front of this record result of ten years of work, a decade in which black music is much changed, is now married to the hip-hop culture and the EDM, partly volgarizzandosi and partly increasingly sophisticated , becoming the true global mainstream?
Forgetting the first format crafty Pharrell, Timbaland's contemporary or ego overflowing of various Kanye West or Jay Z. Here we are faced with a record that speaks the language soul of Marvin Gaye, who has the urgency of Sly Stone of "That's a riot goin 'on", the psychedelic black Funkadelic and the unbridled sensual charge of the first Prince.
"Black Messiah" is a funk tells of torrid, stratified, not always easy listening (but also with a couple of singoloni as "Really Love" and "Sugah Daddy"). The only signs of modernity are data from the lessons imparted by J Dilla ("1000 deaths" that shows the recent cases of Ferguson and "Till it's done"), with those crooked beat drumming and dissonant and always on top of Questlove. No featuring high-flying (only Q-tip and Kendra Foster as contributors to the texts), only great musicians (bass fretless Pino Palladino is always most present and a lot of guitarists including Jesse Johnson of Time and the same D'Angelo, already excellent keyboard player) and a clear message ("We Should all aspire to be a Black Messiah")
Here and there the influence of Prince is more than obvious - D'Angelo has repeatedly declared his great esteem for the musician in Minneapolis: "Sugah Daddy" has the same gait of "Sexy MF", "The Charade" plays on territory of "Diamonds and Pearls", a funk rock drunk "Prayer" is the son of "Anne Christian", not to mention the end of the sitar "Another Love".
And then inside there is so much swing, jazz and writing a thousand layers of falsetto, strings, harmonies that sometimes seem to be faced with a Brian Wilson of funk, with the same wonderful sound confusion in the head. Finally, the texts alternate reflections on itself (Back To The Future) and his past, and civil and social issues of our time.
A disc is not perfect but sweaty and well played (in the notes refers to the use of analog instruments and vintage) that with each listen reveals a new nuance and a new light. Living material and button that in these times a little 'synthetic and easy impact is musical epiphany.




TRACKLIST:
"Is not That Easy"
"1000 Deaths"
"The Charade"
"Sugah Daddy"
"Really Love"
"Back To The Future (Part I)"
"Till It's Done (Tutu)"
"Prayer"
"Betray My Heart"
"The Door"
"Back To The Future (Part II)"
"Another Life"