D’Angelo Suffered In Silence. He Helped Shape The Neo Soul Genre.

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00:00:33 --> 00:17:33 We lost a real one, folks. We lost a real talent. You don't understand just how talented d' Angelo was. He's from the childhood. He's from that era and he's part of that very select group that came up around that time. Kind of this neo soul revival that we had him for sure. Angie Stone, who he has a child with. And Angie Stone died in a car accident. India Ari was another one. I would put Lauryn Hill as another one. I would put Fujis as another one. I'd put Roots. There were all these extremely talented singers and they were. They were like nothing else at the time. And d' Angelo was right in the front of that night. I think he. I remember and there's somebody who knew me at that time, knows the name. I don't remember the dude's name. There was a counselor at the high school and he had a brown truck. It was, I think two or three shades of brown. And the words brown sugar, cursive on it. Used to be a pimp. I forget the guy's name. I see his face in my head. I don't remember his name. But d' Angelo was huge. People that are younger don't know anything about this kind of music and what he was doing. He was so versatile. And he passed from pancreatic cancer a couple days back. Apparently he was fighting it in private, similar to Prince. Prince was also dealing with medical issues in private. D', Angelo, for those didn't know during his, like, he had a song called Untitled, I believe is the name and I remember the video. It was basically just him topless and he's singing. And that was like one of his big things. Like I think even the Brown Sugar, I want to say the Brown Sugar came after that. But the Untitled was what put him on the map. I didn't really care for that song as much, but I know women were dropping panties over it. But I respected d' Angelo as an artist because I understood he was so different than everybody else, so talented. He's the one playing the keyboard that you hear and there's other artists that were inspired by him in the modern era, but nobody came close to what he was doing then or since. In my opinion. Angie Stone sang back up for him on a couple situations and that was really cool. And it was really sad what happened to her as well. I had never listened to Angie Stone's music, but I respected her talent and skill. And I wanted to use today's episode just to talk about, you know, this. People didn't know. I talked about the untitled, his topless body. He was a very. At the time, he was really in good shape. He struggled to do that, though. He actually struggled with weight issues. He was. He was. He would blow it up and it was hard for him to maintain it. And he was very self conscious about his weight, was d'. Angelo. He wouldn't know that because he put on a very good front and he put on a very good, you know, face to that. To the. To the fans and everything. And he always gave his all in his performances. I think there was a point where he fell off a little bit. He was struggling again in silence, and nobody really knew what I remember. He just disappeared and dropped off the map and then eventually resurged and was going to be doing new music at the point that he had passed away, just like Prince. Ironically, the. The parallels between him and Prince are scary, but I thought it was appropriate to just dedicate an episode to him, despite not being. I wouldn't call myself a fan, but I respected him and his music. Many didn't know that d', Angelo, he had a friend, I think it was mtv, and a friend that committed suicide. And from that, that was like early 2000. This is right after the peak, like right after he had hit this stardom. And he was looked at as the sex symbol, you know, kind of the next coming of Prince. At one point, I remember people talking about it and his friend at MTV committed suicide. D' Angelo starts the spiral. He gets into alcohol abuse. Later he gets into drug abuse, largely spinning off of a frustration. He was having issues focusing and getting everything back on track with music. He wanted to do a lot. He was kind of pushing himself, I thought, and perhaps too hard. It just seemed like he was really pushed. He was his worst critic, his own worst critic. He. He knew the pressure was on because of his strong debut. He came out of nowhere as a strong sex symbol physically. And then he has this musical talent. Songs are good. And then he has to try to overcome and step above that. And it was difficult for him to, I think, beat his own greatness. And I got the sense that he just was stressed. He couldn't really hang as much as, you know, you might have thought. And remember, like I said, he was one of many in that neo soul area. You know, Rafael Siddiq is another one. I just thought of Erykah Badu. Geez. Erykah Badu was a huge one. It was difficult for him to then, because of his own self imposed pressure, keep up with everything that was going on. And he started getting running afoul law. He gets arrested for possession of marijuana. Arrested for marijuana, or excuse me, arrested for cocaine rather. And this is when he started. His physical starts to fall off. He's no longer the physical symbol. He still has the singing, he still has the desire to perform. But he doesn't have that same. He doesn't have that same comparative spirit that he had. A lot of people that he had worked with and collabed with. Just I think we're pushing him to get back on track. I talked about the Roots. He had done a little bit of work with some black artists, the Roots being one of that. Of that set. And Quest Love, who's part of the Roots, had also started. He started getting involved. He leaks and I remember he leaked a track and it seemed like a decently good song. And people are like, this is really good. How come you don't go more. And apparently there was a falling out with Erykah Badu. They're a little bit, not antagonistic, but just professional falling out. And then a falling out with Questlove over this whole situation. He goes on tour and for those that don't remember, there was a point where he kind of toyed with other songs from other artists that he would perform and that. That went really well, but they still needed original music right around this time. So now you're talking about mid, you know, say 2010 ish. The. The tastes of everybody changed, musical flavor changed. Everybody suffered from it. Everybody suffered. If you think of all the people at that time, from Sade on down, the taste of music's changed largely because the influence of radio shifted. Because d', Angelo, I remember the first time I heard it, it was on the radio. I clearly remember that situation. And radio was a lot of the exposure for many of the artists at that time. When music tastes change, a lot of artists struggle to keep up with those shifts and they feel compelled to try to perform at a different level. So Prince had that notary notoriety period where he's the artist formerly known. His music completely shifted and he's no longer doing like the Raspberry Beret type stuff. Same situation. Janet, she goes through a point where she starts at something, you know, the Rhythm Nation era. And then she goes through the Velvet Rope period. And then in the middle of all this, the if and again and again, she's just doing different stuff. Michael Jackson, he had started shifting, doing different stuff. Everybody was suffering under this. Everybody was dealing with, how do we keep up and stay fresh? And arguably, Michael was one of the few that was able to still put out music. But it wasn't until, you know, you rock my world that he kind of got back to those fundamentals. Now back to d'. Angelo. He's releasing more tracks, some new music. It gets high ratings, but again, it doesn't last because music tastes had changed. I want to stress from my lens, there was nothing wrong with d' Angelo's music. There was nothing wrong with his performances. He stood out in a crowd. His music was featured in multiple different things, movies, games. So there's nothing wrong with this dude. And I, I couldn't understand why it was that he felt like he had to go above and beyond himself all the time. And it almost seemed like. I didn't want to say it's not self destructive. It just seemed like it's like, dude, can't you be like Jackson Brown is another artist from earlier era. He's the one that sung Somebody's Baby from the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack. He's. He's on record saying he couldn't stand that song. Arguably one of my favorite songs of his. He's got a lot of good songs that I didn't know was him, but he's still performing to this day. He's much, obviously he's much older. He has to sing a lower key. He can't put out the same energy in the voice like he used to, but. And despite not liking the song, he understood that the fans really enjoyed the music. And I think, you know, he never really, from what I could see, he never really completely changed his style and his flow. He just kind of rolled with it and said, this is what it is now. Just last year, d' Angelo had paired up with Jay Z. And I think that partnership and that collab helped him realize, okay, I, I think I understand where my, where my sit is and where I need to be and what I need to be doing and just, okay, Prince was what he was. And I was trying to be like that and I was going through these phases and I didn't really. He didn't recognize himself as himself and that he had his own, like, d' Angelo had his own style, all of it. He could have been his own version of Prince for that, for that genre of music. He didn't need to branch out, just like I said. Like Sade, she's another great example. She fit a niche and it filled for that fan base. And when you try to cater to other fans, it just seems to all unravel. And I never understood it because I was always respectful of what he brought to the table and never really understood why he felt like he had to do what he was doing. I think it hurt his personal relationship because, you know, he has a child with Angie Stone. Apparently he had a child out of, you know, with somebody else, out of that situation. He was. The drugs, the, the alcohol and something that just seemed like he fell off at a point. It seemed like he never got back on track. Even though the Jay Z thing happened, he still was not in that good space. But I think he was getting there. But the damage had already been done. Everything that he had gone through, everything leading up to it, so much damage had already been done to his psyche, to his spirit, to his body, to his money, to his relationships that he never. And then Angie Stone's death, I, I think he just had so many different things happen. He never could pull it back together. Very similar to Jaheim. Jaheim had a similar fall off. He's another one of those neo souls. Jaheim had a fall off. He's just recently had a resurgence. I'm kind of keeping an eye on that one too. So definitely a. I thought he was d', Angelo, a beast in music. I thought he was fantastic in the neo soul genre. And I always questioned, always question, dude, why can't you recognize just how you stood out? Like, there's nobody like him. Just like Lauryn Hill. There's nobody like him. Like her, Just like Jackson Brown, there's nobody like him. Sometimes you just say, this is my niche and I'm good at it and I'm going to roll with it. But whether due to pressure in the music business or you're self imposed, I think personal lives just get in the way. That seems to be the pattern. Lauren had it, you know, Jackson Brown went through his turmoil at points and it's sad, it's. It sucks because you get so many talented artists that we lose and, and too soon. D', Angelo, we lost too soon. Angie Stone, we lost too soon. Prince, we lost way too soon. And then people that suffer in silence. So I'm sorry to hear that. And I'm sorry to hear that he had. He was going through so much and it just kind of hit him over time, all these different things, that part of his life that all came To a head, and it was what it was. So I. If you're younger, I don't think I have too many younger folks. I encourage you to take a listen to d' Angelo's songs if you haven't already. He has so many that are really good. His cover of Smokey Robinson's Cruisin, I would argue it was. It was one of our songs back then. It really was the. And then again, most women fall head over heels. About his untitled song. I personally. Brown Sugar was one of my cuts. He had so much to offer the music business that will never get back again. There's nobody that was like him. And we can't know what else he was struggling with because he's gone. We can't. He had never. I don't even remember him doing significant interviews. You know, we're in a different era where a lot of people are cutting interviews. I don't remember him doing significant interviews either. But I can't emphasize enough the impact he had on the music business. It was significant. His impact will be felt for many years. Nobody will ever come close to that impact. Not just because of the talent, but because he bridged an era. You know, we don't. He had radio behind him. Without radio, we no longer will have that exposure. I think he was on Arsenio at least once, if I recall. We no longer have that kind of a platform. We no longer have these platforms designed to showcase talent like this. And it's unfortunate. It is. It's a great loss to music to lose this guy. Like, I. I was really hurt by Prince. I was really hurt by Loofah, by far. And again, I wasn't a fan of d', Angelo, but I recognized the artistry that he was and will never get something like that again.