D'Angelo's long-awaited comeback will be released before the end of 2014, his manager has announced. Fourteen years after Voodoo, two years since his live return and 18 months after collaborator Questlove said the record was "99% done", the singer is hopefully primed to put out his third LP.
"There'll be an album this year," the singer's manager Kevil Liles recently told Billboard. "Sooner [rather] than later!" Following aborted sessions with Mark Ronson and a more successful run with Questlove, D'Angelo has so far reportedly finished 14 songs, with only "a couple of bonus [singles]" left to do. "We're mixing and mastering now," Liles said, and added that D'Angelo plans to start an international tour in October.
The bad news is that we have heard most of this before. Prior to Qeestlove's "99%" quote, the Roots bandleader had said in December 2011 that they were "pretty much 97% done". In March 2013, Liles told Billboard they were two weeks away from mastering and mixing the album.
"Here's the thing: with D'Angelo it was a process," Liles said. "He didn't perform for 10 years and he's been working on an album for the past 12 years." Liles recalled talking to his client after that live return, as well as some gigs with Questlove under the name Brothers in Arms. According to Liles, D'Angelo told him: "'I wanna be sure that the baby I'm about to have – the album – that I take it to the point where it's all it can be.'"
D'Angelo hasn't hidden from the spotlight. The singer played at Carnegie Hall in March, at Bonnaroo last weekend and is scheduled to perform as part of a James Brown tribute at the Hollywood Bowl in August.
In 2012, D'Angelo told GQ magazine that the death of producer J Dilla, in 2006, made him decide to "get clean". "I felt like I was going to be next," he said. "I ain't bullshitting." He tried three different rehab facilities for substance abuse issues before treatment finally took. "Any person who's dealt with substance abuse, it's an ongoing thing," D'Angelo admitted. "For the most part, I have a grip on it."
D'Angelo's two albums, Brown Sugar (1995) and Voodoo (2000), are considered classics of new soul and funk. Voodoo was a No 1 hit in the US and reached No 21 in the UK.
