can’t be entirely attributed to personal issues. “It’s no coincidence it’s going to take ten years for the next D’Angelo record to come out, ten years for Lauryn,” says Thompson. “It took Erykah eight years, probably the same for Maxwell. You could say the same for Black Star and OutKast. You could go further and say the same for Dave Chappelle. A lot of factors have played into stalling the left-of-center black movement.”

One is quality control. “These artists won’t allow anything they believe is subpar to be out there,” says Common. “I can hear stuff D’Angelo did messing around in the studio and think it’s incredible, but if he doesn’t feel it, fans aren’t going to hear it. Same thing for Lauryn or Erykah.”

Kedar Massenburg, who managed D’Angelo early in his career and first signed Badu, and who is credited with coining the term neo-soul, says the pressure on these artists to constantly innovate can get paralyzing. “They always want to come with something different,” he says. “They rarely respect other stuff out there or listen to other things because they’re trying to contemplate ‘going to the next level.’”

According to Thompson, this perfectionism is complicated by the fact that these artists work mostly by themselves. “The one thing I kept telling Erykah was, ‘ You can’t do it alone,’” he says. “When you work alone, you don’t have the judgment of others; that’s when you start second-guessing yourself and holding your thing hostage. Then, some people have a ‘yes man’ factor.”

This has been a particular problem for D’Angelo. “Not a lot of people are willing to say no to him,” says Elevado. “He gets his way all the time. I don’t want to say he’s manipulative; he just has a way of persuading people.”

Additionally, the neo-soul tag itself became problematic. As Leeds explains, the movement had a “built-in obsolescence, because it was so associated with the heritage of the music,” which stifled excessive experimentation. “In some ways that became a trap: If you got too progressive, you’re not being true to your roots.”

In turn, there’s an additional burden to balance these creative pressures with the desire not to step so far off the reservation musically that their art will tank at the sales counter. In Voodoo’s liner notes, African American poet/recording artist Saul Williams writes presciently about the tug-of-war between art and commerce in black culture (spoiler alert: art is losing). He contends that has put even more weight on the shoulders of D’Angelo and his ilk.

“When our generation falls victim to that Diddy mentality of ‘Get money by any means necessary,’ that puts a disproportionate amount of focus on people like D’Angelo and Lauryn,” he says. “It’s like, ‘ You’re the only ones that get it. You guys have to cut through the bullshit.’ So then we’re like, ‘You’re not just a great artist, you’re the messiah! Please come out with something!’ It’s enough to drive you batty.”

While most of these artists never viewed music as a path to fame and riches, Thompson maintains that it’s hard not to subconsciously internalize those commercial pressures. “I live with that,” he says. “When I create things, I almost have to dumb it down a little, because low record sales for me is seen like a failure.…Black product is only celebrated when the artist’s image is overbloated, overanimated, and there’s sales to back it up.” This isn’t necessarily clear-cut racism, he says, but rather something the black community bears some responsibility for fostering. “The new minstrel movement in hip-hop doesn’t allow the audience to believe the artist is smart,” he continues. “I love Kid A, but I don’t think D’Angelo would be allowed to sing ‘Cut the kids in half’ over and over and be taken seriously. It’d be like, ‘What’s wrong with that boy?’”

 

early everyone interviewed for this story agrees D’Angelo is in pretty good shape these days. After a few setbacks, sobriety seems, for the moment anyway, to have stuck. He returned to the studio in earnest around late 2006 and has recorded at a reasonably consistent if not exactly breakneck pace since. There is, however, disagreement on how close he is to actually finishing his album.

After protracted negotiations, J Records finally inked him to a new record deal last December. The label hopes he’ll have an album on shelves by the fall

“The new minstrel
movement in hip-hop
doesn’t allow the audience to
believe the artist is smart.”

?UESTLOVE

 

or winter, and his new manager, Lindsay Guion, says he’s on track to finish recording by the end of August. While no one disputes the quantity or even the quality of recording that’s been done, Elevado, who has been part of nearly every D’Angelo recording session since Voodoo, says that, as of late May, the number of songs actually completed stands at zero.

“Six songs are very close,” he says. “Just a couple of lyrics, a couple of overdubs, and they’ll be ready for mixing.” The latest sessions have gone well, Elevado says, “but not as productive as I’d like and nowhere near the Voodoo times. He’s still taking a lot of breaks. He’ll come in and not do a lot. His energy is better, but I don’t know where his focus is.”

As of early June, D’Angelo was in Virginia taking time off. He’d been recording out near San Francisco in March but returned home shortly after the death of Chalmers “Spanky” Alford, the guitarist on the Voodoo tour. “That hit him pretty hard,” says Elevado. But more recording is planned for later in June, and sessions are planned with Saadiq, John Mayer, and Cee-Lo.

Whatever form the album takes, questions remain as to which D’Angelo will promote it. What if he looks more like the pudgy Brown Sugar kid than the chiseled Voodoo hunk?

Peter Edge, D’Angelo’s A&R man at J, doesn’t think that particular scenario is likely. “I’m not saying he’s going to be doing the ‘Untitled’ video again, but he’s into martial arts these days and very much back in shape.” Despite D’Angelo’s troubled history, Edge has high hopes. “I want him to be a big, universal superstar who could transcend genre and appeal to everyone. He’s that good.”

The question, though, is whether D’Angelo wants that himself. Trenier, for one, isn’t so sure. “He’s a throwback in that he’s like, ‘ Why can’t I just put the music out? If I want to tour, cool, but I don’t want to go on MTV and shake hands with Carson Daly.’”

In some ways, choosing material, collaborators, and a marketing plan are just details, and all the talk of self-image, art, commerce, and inspiration are simply justifications for an artist who has been stuck in what Saul Williams calls his “prince of Denmark phase” for too long.

“A lot of it is just letting go and telling himself, ‘I’m not going to add another thing,’” says Elevado.

Trenier agrees: “Don’t feel sorry for him, because it ain’t that. It’s on him to change and go, ‘I’m ready.’”

In fact, nearly all those close to him concur that at this point, the only thing keeping D’Angelo from finishing this album is D’Angelo. Thompson says it all comes down to something those in his and D’Angelo’s circle call the “Latifah factor.”

“The Latifah factor is the last scene in Set It Off, where she’s like, ‘Fuck it. If I’m going to get shot, I’m going to get shot with my chin sticking out,’” he explains. “She gets out of the car and gets blown the fuck away.

“That’s a rather morbid view of it,” Thompson continues with a laugh, “but really, I think D will be pleasantly surprised. He just needs to stop tripping over his feet and make the record already.”

 

GE T MORE

FOR CLASSIC D’ANGELO S TORIES FROM SPIN’S ARCHIVE, PLUS THE CON TROVERSIAL “UN TI TLED” VIDEO, GO TO > SPIN.COM/DANGELO