D’Angelo Is Hard at Work on the Follow-Up to 2014’s ‘Black Messiah’

“I do want to put a lot of music out there,” D’Angelo told Rolling Stone in 2014, shortly after the release of his acclaimed, long-delayed third album, Black Messiah . “I feel like, in a lot of respects, that I’m just getting started.” He still has yet to release a follow-up, however, and has largely gone quiet since touring behind it. But now, D’Angelo is deep into recording his next album, according to his friend and longtime collaborator Raphael Saadiq.

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“D’s in a good space,” Saadiq says on the new episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. “He’s excited. He’s like, ‘you gotta play bass. I’ve got this track. I’m telling you, you got to get on it. It got your name all over it.’ … He’s working on six pieces right now and he seems super excited.”

Among the songs D’Angelo is working on is a major surprise: a track recorded years ago by Linwood Rose, the short-lived supergroup that was set to feature D’Angelo, Saadiq, and Q-Tip. “I think it’s going to be a record on D’Angelo’s new album when it comes out, a record that we all did together,” says Saadiq. “Linwood Rose lives. I’m playing bass, D’s playing, me and D is singing backgrounds. It’s funky as hell, too. It’s like, D is a bad boy. … It’s aged well. Good music ages well.”

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Saadiq and D’Angelo have been working together since “Lady” from D’Angelo’s debut, and Saadiq produced and co-wrote his biggest hit, “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” from 2000’s classic Voodoo . In his Rolling Stone Music Now interview, Saadiq says the two artists bonded over their shared gospel influences. “I think more of his soul came from his gospel roots, not Prince,” says Saadiq. “But Prince had a huge gospel background, too. He was able to camouflage it a lot in his songwriting. And I think D’Angelo is the same way, too.” Elsewhere in his new interview, Saadiq talks about working with Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter and much more.

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