D’Angelo To Unveil New Album ‘Black Messiah’ At Listening Party In NYC

It's been a long time coming. A very long time. But it looks like D'Angelo will drop his first studio album in 14 years in the very near future. The project will be heard by a select few tastemakers tomorrow during an exclusive listening party in New York City. Back in June, Questlove hinted about the project dropping in October saying, “There’ll be an album this year: there’s 14 records so far, we might have a couple of bonus records, but all the recording is basically done and we’re mixing and mastering now." Obviously the project missed that mark but could be dropping sooner than you think. The Virginia singer will unveil the LP titled Black Messiah in a listening session hosted by journalist Nelson George and put together by Red Bull Music Academy and Afropunk.

"It's going to take you about 10 years to digest this record," Quest told RolingStone of the project. "Totally brilliant. Just the way this society works with music...being able to judge if something is a classic after the first listen, you can do that after 30 seconds on this. And the fact that we started this record in 2004, and it still sounds like it came out five years from now, it is a testament to the timelessness of it."

D'Angelo released his debut album, Brown Sugar, in 1995, followed by Voodoo in 2000. Both are widely considered classics, but since the release of the latter the crooner has had a string of legal and personal problems that have led to several false starts while trying to complete this come back album.

Check out the album promo for the project released by D'Angelo's manager Kevin Liles, above.

Related: Questlove Hints At New D’Angelo Album In Red Bull Music Academy Talk
D’Angelo and Questlove’s Superjam Took 12 Years

[via RollingStone]