Voodoo

The 2nd album from American singer-songwriter & instrumentalist D'Angelo was released in January 2000 and served as a conventional departure from his predecessor Brown Sugar (1995).

It was recorded throughout 1998-1999 at Electric Lady Studios in New York with a line-up of musicians who were associated with Soulquarians (a collective of experimental Black music artists that D'Angelo was a part of along with the likes of Questlove, J Dilla, Q-Tip and Mos Def).

Lyrically, Voodoo explores many topics relating to love, sexuality, maturation and fatherhood.
For example, Devil's Pie is focused on the "money hungry state of the world we're living in", The Root deals with heartbreak, Spanish Joint being about karma & Africa (which was originally written in homojr of his son) being focused on D'Angelo celebrating his heritage and a dedication to history and God.

The album was a huge critical & commercial success, debuting on the US Billboard 200 at No.1, having sold 320k copies in its first week and spent 33 weeks on the chart.
It's also regarded as serving a milestone for neo-soul music.

Where do I begin with describing the sound of this album? It's such a vibe... a smooth, organic & funk-laced one that had me bopping slowly to it.

Everything on this album has a groovy feeling that makes it so addictive to listen to, with D'Angelo's fantastic vocals & the instrumentation accompanying each track nicely.

I love the Hip-Hop influences in the production as well from the likes of DJ Premier along with Questlove's & J Dilla's involvement making this sound quite addictive.

The funk-influenced sound feels like a love-letter to the 70s as it has a strong oldschool vibe of the best kind that reminisces the likes of something Prince would've made.

Voodoo can feel slightly overlong at 79mins and a little bit inconsistent, but those cons never take away from the overall enjoyment I got from this album as it's a defining piece of the Neo-Soul genre that will age like a fine wine as it already has proven to do so.