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73. Black Messiah - D’Angelo & The Vanguard (2014)

R&B

Black Messiah is one momentous occasion. Released in December 2014, the album emphatically concluded the best year in recent music history, leapfrogging a slew of fellow masterpieces and establishing itself atop many critics’ end-of-year lists. Every song on the album is a bold statement that finds D’Angelo reinventing himself as a prodigious producer, as well as a highly gifted singer, while getting assists from the likes of the Questlove, Jesse Johnson and the late Spanky Alford. While the lyrics are firmly grounded in the often sleazy seductiveness that put D’Angelo on the map way back in the 90s, they are of secondary importance on Black Messiah, which instead focuses almost all its energy in creating a truly revolutionary sound. 

Questlove’s percussionary fingerprints are all over the album, with many of the compositions being reminiscent of early Roots’ recordings. Many of the tracks are dancy, with quirky falsettos and raspy crooning slaloming through handclaps and groovy basslines. The funkiness is real and welcoming enough to get lost in, made all the more genuine by a grittiness that seems to put you right there in the studio with them. D’Angelo embraces his inner messiah, returning after an extended 14 year hiatus to assuage peoples’ fears and anger amidst a series of calamitous events in places like New York City and Ferguson, MO. Black Messiah’s overwhelmingly positive effect may be hard to quantify in the macro, but it’s undeniable while you’re listening.

*image; cover art for the album Black Messiah by the artist D’Angelo & The Vanguard