American - Musician | February 11, 1974 -
You have to know the forces that are against you and that are trying to break you down. We talk about the problems facing the black community: the decimation of the black family; the mass incarceration of the black man; we're talking about the brutality against black people from the police. The educational system.
D'Angelo
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I'm always writing and learning. It's about growth. So I'm growing as a musician, as a guitarist.
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I think it just takes one little snowflake to start a snowball to go down the hill. My contribution and, say, Kendrick Lamar's and some chosen others' start the snowball. That's all I can hope for. I don't know if I'm comfortable being quote-unquote a leader.
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When I was young, I had an 'aha' moment in church. There was a thing called testimony service, and somebody would sing a song, and everyone else would join in, finding a note where they fit. During one of those, a light went on in my head. In that moment, I heard everything - Parliament, the Staple Singers, Curtis Mayfield, Prince - in there.
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I grew up teaching parts to choirs, and I love a whole group of voices singing as one.
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The stage is our pulpit, and you can use all of that energy and that music and the lights and the colors and the sound. But you know, you've got to be careful.
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I've always kind of tried to do something that was a little different than just simple 'I love you, baby'-type songs.
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I'm kinda a first take dude. The first time, cut that mic on, and the spirit is there, and what comes on the mic - I mean, even if I'm mumbling, I like to keep a lot of that initial thing that comes out. Cause that's the spirit.
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I think shortly after I got signed, it just started to dawn on me that I had something to say and that Yahweh put something in my heart to share with the world.
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The thing with me is, about that - about rock and all that - years and years of crate-digging, listening to old music, you kind of start to connect the dots. And I was seeing the thread that was connecting everything together, which is pretty much the blues. And everything soul or funk kind of starts with that.
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Aretha Franklin was as important to the civil-rights movement as Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. Artists can choose to take on the tremendous amount of responsibility we have, or choose to ignore it.
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It's about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen. It's not about praising one charismatic leader but celebrating thousands of them... 'Black Messiah' is not one man. It's a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.
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