I love - you know, I'm a big fan of Prince and Curtis Mayfield and Smoky Robinson. It's something to be said about a man who can be very masculine but still display that sensitive side, and that falsetto does it perfectly.
More Quotes by D'Angelo
I'm always writing and learning. It's about growth. So I'm growing as a musician, as a guitarist.
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.
Just about the entirety of the first album, 'Brown Sugar,' I wrote it, the majority of that record in my bedroom in Richmond. And all of the demos for it were done on a four-track in my bedroom. I think EMI was a little leery of me being in the studio producing it on my own, which is what I was fighting for.
The music business is a crazy game, especially for somebody like me who is really a purist about the art. Trying to balance the pressures of commercialism, it's a tightrope. It's a fine line between sticking to your guns and insanity.
I grew up teaching parts to choirs, and I love a whole group of voices singing as one.
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.