DONTE

Alan Leeds reacts to D'Angelo's death: "I’m utterly heartbroken. Grieving is such a self-absorbed process. But this time it’s not just about losing someone who was part of my life. This one is about losing the link between the music I grew up with in the 1960’s and the music that looms fresh today. Against the grain of bland modern r&b, D’Angelo preserved the Gospel essence of early soul music, mixing it with every other genre of Black music without ever leaving the church. I don’t care what the lyrics said, I don’t care what the song was about, I ALWAYS heard the church in there! He couldn’t help it. He didn’t have to think about it. It just willfully flowed through whatever he did in a recording studio or on stage. After one of our shows, you FELT like you’d been to church. Good church! There are those who were puzzled by his slight body of released work. But D’s posse of fellow artists and friends knew he was way more prolific than his three albums suggest. His music was personal. It was just what he did. He was not a pop star, he was an ARTIST. His three albums had more substance, versatility and influence than any artist with a whole record store full of music! It didn’t escape D that the irony of his break-through was the controversial, sexy video clip for “Untitled (How Does It Feel)”. He got a kick out of shooting the clip and stood by it as a marketing tool. But when excited audiences began shouting for him to “take it off”, he nearly cancelled an entire tour! “Hey Pops, they thinkin’ we some kind of Chippendales s--t up here?” he asked me. D’Angelo was about the music but Michael Archer had little taste for the BUSINESS of music. Even at the risk of his career, he refused making decisions based on the bottom line. He was convinced that every step towards the music business was a step away from his artistic integrity. A balance between the two was daunting to navigate. D once described it to Malcolm Kee, his forever loyal sergeant-at-arms, as trying to spin a basketball on a finger while riding a roller coaster. (How’s THAT for a metaphor?). Sure D had his demons. Don’t we all? There’s no school teaching artists how to handle success. But none of that defines him. Maybe he’s not even defined by the three albums he left us. I think he’s defined by the thousands of young artists and musicians who he exposed to all the music of the Black diaspora and how artistic integrity can bring all the genres together. But to Hell with all that now. I told you grief was selfish. I’m grateful we had the chance to say goodbye. But I’m still broken hearted. I miss Mike."