Typically D'Angelo: his audience has been waiting yearning for a musical sign of life for years, and then - bang bang - in the last week of 2014 there is that brand new album titled Black Messiah. In the book, D'Angelo hastens to say that the album title is not a self-chosen title, but an honorary title for anyone who strives to bring out the best in themselves. D'Angelo puts words into action,
… because at its best moments Black Messiah is nowhere inferior to its illustrious predecessor (again from 2000). As one of the few of his contemporaries, D'Angelo knows the ghosts of eccentric funk heroes like , and to translate to the twenty-first century. At first hearing there seems to be a looseness in his music, but when you listen to Black Messiah more often, an addictive funk record unfolds where every bass line and a-rhythmic handclaps seem in place. Nobody expected it yet, but D'Angelo has the guts and the songs to convince again fourteen years after Voodoo with an irresistible funk album. (PdK)more
