Brian Braiker 

D’Angelo at Afropunk review – neo-soul star keeps it deep and heavy

Brian Braiker: Backed by the Roots, Michael Eugene Archer sent the Brooklyn crowd home happy, despite leaving out his best-known hits
  
  

D'Angelo Afropunk
D’Angelo’s songs were mostly unfamiliar with to the crowd at Afropunk. Photograph: Roger Kisby/Getty Images Photograph: Roger Kisby/Getty Images

After weeks of will-he-or-won’t-he speculation, enigmatic R&B recluse D’Angelo made good on his promise to headline the 2014 Afropunk festival in Brooklyn on Sunday night. But not without keeping people guessing until the moment he stepped on stage.

It was announced with much fanfare in June that he would headline the two-day music event devoted to black rock, punk, soul, art and skate culture, but in the weeks leading up to the event – which draws thousands each year – D’Angelo’s name had disappeared from promotional material. Instead, the audience was promised only a “special guest” headliner. Until he appeared on stage an hour late, backed by members of the Roots, there were concerns in the crowd that D’Angelo would not show at all.

But show he did. In a shambling, hour-long set – topical, dark in tone and reflecting a mishmash of musical influences – D’Angelo appeared less interested in showing the crowd where he’s been than where he might be heading.

Michael Eugene Archer hasn’t released an album in 14 years, since his “neo-soul” masterpiece Voodoo. It was a tour de force of funk, soul, hip-hop and sex. The spirit was somewhat on display Sunday, even if none of the songs were performed. Nor did he play anything from his 1995 debut Brown Sugar, a slow burn of a record that earned the first comparisons to Prince and Marvin Gaye.

Untitled (How Does it Feel) is one of D’Angelo’s best known tracks from his album Voodoo

Sunday’s songs were mostly unfamiliar to the crowd who, if they came expecting hits, may have been disappointed. Even the covers he performed were relative deep cuts: one highlight was his take on Sly and the Family Stone’s 1973 Thankful n’ Thoughtful, in which D’Angelo played a funky clavinet over Roots bassist Mark Kelley’s deep-in-the-pocket thump.

“Sunday morning, I forgot my prayer/ I should have been happy, to still be there,” Sly sang then, lyrics all the more poignant coming from a man prone to silence and sabbaticals. The crowd was thankful to have him, too.

Depsite the occasional note of hope, the tenor of the performance was deep and heavy. “She’s the devil and I like it,” D’Angelo sang in the set opener, over the steady rumble of Questlove’s drums and a high, piercing screech of Captain Kirk Douglas’s distorted guitar. The song chugged to a church-like, almost gospel, conclusion tinged with irony given the brimstone of the lyrics.

Before launching into his second song of the evening, D’Angelo took off his jacket to reveal his frame. Once almost shockingly fit – a tiny person could scale the abdominal muscles on the Voodoo cover, if one were able to survive the overpowering sexuality of it all – D’Angelo, 40, is carrying some extra weight these days.

And so is his music. The band took a minute to lock into the groove of the next song, an almost impossibly asymmetrical time signature laid by Questlove, before it became clear they were doing a cover of Bob Marley’s Burning and Looting.

“This morning I woke up in a curfew / O God, I was a prisoner, too,” D’Angelo sang. “Could not recognize the faces standing over me / They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality.”

References to the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson permeated the entire festival – an event dedicated to peace, harmony and self-expression. In the moments before D’Angelo took the stage, an Afropunk MC engaged in a call and response. “I say ‘Hands up!,’ you say ‘Don’t shoot!’” he commanded the obliging crowd. There were T-shirts emblazoned with palm prints and the words “Don’t shoot!” There were flags that read ‘Fuck White Privilege’.

D’Angelo performs Prince’s She’s Always in My Hair at AfroPunk 2014

And then there was the music. Aggressively inclusive, the 10-year old Afropunk festival reached peak diversity this past weekend with performances by ska-punk veterans Fishbone, eighth-grade heavy metal wunderkinds Unlocking the Truth, Bronx songwriter Gordon Voidwell and soul diva Sharon Jones, backed by Brooklyn’s house funk band the Daptones.

Fishbone’s frontman Angelo Moore, who performs as Dr Madd Vibe, joined D’Angelo on stage looking like a ska version of the Riddler. In patterned overalls and a bowler, he performed a manic theremin over an operatic, post-apocalyptic number. “The powers have lost their way,” he sang along with D’Angelo, who provided a church-like organ churn.

The final song of the set was a cover of Prince’s She’s Always in My Hair, in which D’Angelo practically conjured the tiny purple one. “Whenever I feel like givin’ up, whenever my sunshine turns to rain / Whenever my hopes and dreams are aimed in the wrong direction / She’s always there tellin’ me how much she cares / She’s always in my hair, she’s always in my hair, my hair.”

There was no encore, and at 10pm it was time to kill the sound in Fort Greene’s Commodore Barry Park. But for a brief moment, D’Angelo was once again in Brooklyn’s hair, too. For that, many were thankful. But a new record would be nice, too.

 

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