D'Angelo's first album in almost fifteen years was released at the end of 2014, and while there's been a handful of huge record releases in the months since, Black Messiah is still seeping into the public conscious. The album came as a legitimate surprise, but in quintessential D'Angelo fashion, we still haven't seen much of the guy since. Thankfully, D'Angelo visited The Tavis Smiley Show on Wednesday for his first televised interview in more than ten years and spoke about the new album, his history in the Pentecostal Church, politics, and way more.
"Black Messiah is, I think, the most sociopolitical stuff I've done on record," D'Angelo said, according to Pitchfork. "I think in lieu of everything that's been going—the sign of the times, right—something needs to be said. There's so few doing that right now, and that was funny to me because there's so much going on. The Black Lives Matter movement is going on, young Black men and women are getting killed for nothing. I've always been a big reader and fan of history, and I love the Black Panthers. ... I'm not trying to be like a poster child or anything of the movement, but definitely a voice as a Black man—as a concerned Black man and as a father, as well."
Watch the first part of the interview above and the second part below.
