By Kevin Rutherford
It’s not uncommon these days for a Saturday Night Live musical guest to make him or herself (or selves) part of the show by appearing in a sketch or two outside their two musical performances. D’Angelo, on the other hand, was unseen for all except about 10 minutes for his renditions of Black Messiah songs “Really Love” and “The Charade.”
But that doesn’t mean that he, much like Prince weeks before him, didn’t steal the show.
Instead the singer, fresh off the surprise release of Black Messiah after a nearly 15-year break between LPs, ran through a set equal parts funky, sexy and, with his latter performance, captivating.
Following its Spanish language intro, D’Angelo slid into “Really Love,” sidling up to the mic like some sort of Zorro, hat cocked to the side, conjuring notes out of thin air in his smooth falsetto. The slow-burning track saw him accompanied by a string section and delicately picked flamenco guitar, but the main attraction was the man making his first ever appearance on the show, somehow both parts imposing visage and warm, inviting presence.
The talk of Twitter was 1) How much “Really Love” was their jam (which, sure) and 2) D’Angelo’s look, and for his second song he changed it up, opting for a hooded, gloved look, breaking out the electric guitar for “The Charade.” The performance became his commentary on the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, his backing band The Vanguard wearing Black Lives Matter and I Can’t Breathe shirts, a chalk outline of a body behind him and seen even more clearly via overhead camera shots. After the extended, rollicking outro, the entire band, D’Angelo included, posed with heads down, fists raised.
D’Angelo’s performance comes after the surprise release of Black Messiah last month, his first album since 2000’s Voodoo. The album came out after many year-end lists had already been released, but The Village Voice‘s Pazz + Jop poll, which hits in January, ranked it the top album of 2014.
from Radio.com http://ift.tt/16e5BdV
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