![]() He signed a publishing deal with EMI in 1991, and two years later, he parlayed it into a full-fledged recording contract.Īs these doors of opportunity were opening, D’Angelo was already conceiving the material that would ultimately morph into his debut LP. After earning modest attention in a pair of fledgling groups formed around his native Richmond, VA (Michael Archer and Precise and hip-hop group I.D.U.), D’Angelo caught the ears of the EMI label, and urban music mogul Kedar Massenburg in particular. In fact, arguably too much has been made about it, which has had the unfortunate consequence of overshadowing the legacy that Michael “D’Angelo” Archer began cultivating in the early ‘90s, long before Voodoo even came to fruition. ![]() Much ink has been devoted to D’Angelo’s nearly 15-year self-imposed exile and creative hibernation that followed the success of Voodoo, followed most recently by his five years and counting of retreat, for the most part, from the public eye following Black Messiah’s arrival. And while most older heads like myself surely consider Voodoo (2000) their D’Angelo album of choice and the younger generation has embraced Black Messiah (2014) as the new standard of superior soul, Brown Sugar remains my personal favorite of the three, albeit by a razor-thin margin. I’ve never even remotely tired of it, and I suspect I never will. ![]() I bought it the day it arrived in stores and played it incessantly thereafter, objectively recognizing its understated brilliance while selfishly reveling in its therapeutic powers. The album that I most vividly remember turning to on a consistent basis throughout those long summer days was D’Angelo’s breakthrough debut Brown Sugar. I had much to contemplate during that transitional period between adolescence and young adulthood, and I recall gravitating more heavily than usual toward music as a means of alleviating the anxieties I harbored. ![]() The summer of 1995 was a pivotal time in my life, as I had just recently graduated high school and was counting down the days to the commencement of my freshman year at UCLA. Happy 25th Anniversary to D’Angelo’s debut album Brown Sugar, originally released in the UK Jand in the US July 4, 1995. ![]()
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