D’Angelo laid the foundation for the rap/R&B crossover with this record, and if you take a look at early 00s rap, where it was commonplace for rappers to stay on the verses and singers to take care of the hooks and choruses, it isn’t hard to feel his influence. There’s no way that the singing/rapping double threat of Drake would be the same. Classic albums from Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and Frank Ocean would undoubtedly be different. It’s a good thing that this hip hop head grew up in the church, though, because without Brown Sugar, who knows where soul music would be. Ali Shaheed described D’Angelo “a hip-hop head who grew up in the church,” which is probably a better description of his sound than any music critic can successfully ink. I tried to stay true to that.” Along with Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest), Raphael Saadiq, and Bob Power, they achieved this previously unachieved counterpoint between classic soul, modern hip hop, and the future sound of R&B. Soul music is not limited, because there’s so much blues and gospel in it. D’Angelo has said that he didn’t want the album to have a certain sound, claiming, “I wanted it to sound raw, not real polished. The sound on Brown Sugar is a mix of the early 90s hip hop sound and the 80s R&B of Sade and Chaka Khan. His musical capabilities allow Brown Sugar to play out as a true representation of his vision, which was one of the most progressive visions of the mid-90s. Pretty much any top dog in the R&B / soul category has had a ton of help in the studio, but D’Angelo is one of the truly rare examples of diverse talent that was able to conquer multiple, if not all, instruments on a given track. Neither did Curtis Mayfield or Marvin Gaye. Michael Jackson didn’t make most of his best records without a cast of killer studio musicians. He is a true virtuosic musician, one that led him to garnering the nickname “R&B Jesus” years later.ĭ’Angelo’s ability to play multiple instruments truly puts him in a category of his own. One look at the liner notes and you’ll see the artist does in fact have production credits on each track along with writing credits on all but one, the cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’.” You’ll see that virtually each track was written by D’Angelo, arranged by him, and, in many cases, that he played all of the instruments on the track. Taking cues from Prince’s technique, D’Angelo decided that he wanted to write, produce, and perform on the record.
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December 2022
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