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The Black Messiah
Called “the last pure singer on Earth,” neo-soul genius D’Angelo left us on October 14, aged just 51.
Voodoo magic: D’Angelo, “The Master Teacher”, performing in 2015.
New York Times/Redux/Eyevine
“He was the greatest student of us all.”
RODRICK ‘CLICHE’ SIMMONS
AT D’ANGELO’s FINAL show, at the Hollywood Bowl on April 30, 2022, the singer recruited former Prince sideman Josh Dunham to play bass. “[D’Angelo] called me and started talking about the bass lines I’d played on the records I’d done with Prince,” Dunham tells MOJO. “He was like, ‘I’m a fan, for real.’ We rehearsed for a whole month in New York. Just to see him sing, and play keyboards, and even show me what to play on the bass, how he wanted it to sound, was amazing – he had this incredible, raw talent.”
It was a talent which departed this world on October 14, after the singer lost his unpublicised battle with pancreatic cancer. Among those paying tribute were Bootsy Collins, Nile Rodgers, Jill Scott and Lauryn Hill, who wrote, “You imaged a unity of strength and sensitivity in Black manhood to a generation that only saw itself as having to be one or the other.”
“I was first a fan,” says Rodrick ‘Cliche’ Simmons, who played keyboards on the 2015 The Second Coming tour, D’Angelo’s last. “I became a contributor, then a peer, a member of the band, and most importantly, a brother. While the world knows him as an innovator, he was The Master Teacher, but he was also the greatest student of us all. More than that, he was a great brother to me.”