Remembering D’Angelo: The Eternal Spell of ‘Voodoo’

When D’Angelo passed away this week at age 51, he left behind just three studio albums, yet each of them had shaped the larger music world in undeniable ways. His crowning achievement came in the middle: 2000’s Voodoo, a moment of transcendent soul greatness that was as distinct from its influences as it was in thrall to them. Twenty years after its release, Justin Sayles unpacked its creation and impact—and now, of course, the piece feels more urgent than ever.

But despite the massive debt owed to the masters who came before D’Angelo and Co., these sessions were producing something much different than the throwback affair that was Brown Sugar. The songs that would eventually come to make up Voodoo were conversant with the history of black music, not direct homages—you may be able to hear strains of Parliament on the Poyser-produced “Chicken Grease” or bits of Fela Kuti on the up-tempo “Spanish Joint,” but the influences were interwoven into the fabric of the music. “You hear it but you’re not being beat over the head,” says Faith Pennick, [author of the] 33 ⅓ book about the album. “Marvin’s obvious, but it’s all rivers that flow into an ocean and that ocean is Voodoo.”