I have been in the whirlwind of transformation for two years. Transition after transition, I’ve shed what I’ve outgrown, crafted new skins, tried them on, restructured ‘em to fit me, and developed new tools for a new age. All of the change is metabolizing inside of me and my blood is the archivist, the library, and the transmitter of information about who I am and how to navigate this messy world. It seems my own changes are mirroring the world. This time last week I was swirling with women and genderqueer people of all ages and Egun at Iranti Eje (Remembering Blood), my god-auntie’s convening of the menopausal multiverse. We were in conversation and in motion on transition as a portal to self-embodiment and self-embodiment transitioning us into power itself. This time last year I was in my own place in Upstate SC, planning an immersive experience (The Voodoo [Album] Experience) to celebrate and reconnect with D’Angelo’s Voodoo album with an incredible group of artists, spiritualists, visionaries, and industry insiders. Tonight I am revisiting the work of 3 of the artists who created films for us to meditate on the music and the man who was the catalyst for it, on the week of his transition to the spiritual realm. I’ve been listening to D’s downloads (his musical catalogue) since hearing of his passing and realized we are living through a revolution. The organizers, the seers, the griots, the elders, and so many aspects of a community are being reshaped. Some batons are being passed and others tossed to the sky for whomever is brave enough to catch it. I wanted to share this essay I wrote for The Voodoo [Album] Experience’s newsletter as a call-in to my fellow lovers of D and Black folks navigating the choppy seas and high winds of transformation, as I am.
Published in The Voodoo [Album] Experience Newsletter, January 2025
One of the common denominators amongst our team’s love and connection to D’Angelo’s Voodoo is the undeniable soul and vulnerability woven throughout the tracks. Its musicality belies an Ancestral energy and evokes a desire in the listener to move beyond the status quo, beckoning our minds and bodies to another reality. Loren Kajikawa notes in his article ‘D’Angelo’s Voodoo Technology: African Cultural Memory and the Ritual of Popular Music Consumption’ that, “The cross-rhythmic tendencies of “Playa Playa” and other songs on Voodoo reflect a common image of African and Caribbean religiosity in which moments of spiritual transcendence can be found through repetitious irregular rhythmic figures that induce trancelike states.” Kajikawa finds in his research that the most devoted fans to the album connect to its raw, spiritual underpinning. This is why I return to Voodoo again and again.
I wanted to learn more about D’Angelo’s relationship with the Divine and if there was something he wanted to communicate specifically with an African spiritual lens. My teammate Naomi Milagros and I speculated on what ways, if any, Vodou, Lukumí, Isese, or other Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions influenced this album. On an initial listen (and even after countless listens for some), it seems like the lyricism of the album, the ceremony depicted on the album cover and art, and the title of the album are awry. The Divinity they conjure up isn’t immediately present beyond the drum invocation at the beginning of ‘Playa Playa.’
D opts for evocative portraits of a spiritual ceremony for the album's art. He don’s ileke around his neck that could signify he has received the warrior Orisas (in some lineages of Lukumí and Isese, Yoruba and Yoruba descended spiritual traditions, receiving the protection of the warrior Orisas is the beginning of your journey) and an ide on his wrist that looks like connected ovals which is usually worn by someone who has been crowned Orisa. We are also granted a view into what appears to be a ritual happening, with D in the foreground appearing mid-dance holding a rooster, while a Black woman dressed in white with her head covered and wearing ileke, dances in the background. Behind her is a Black man drumming. On the back of the album, the same woman seems to be mid-chant, filled with Spirit, and is holding a rooster. D is now in the background drumming on a conga, eyes closed. The album art feels reverent and to those familiar with these spiritual traditions, seemingly depicts a ceremony in real time where Orisa are invoked and appeased.
To the listener ready to hear 78 minutes of D croon out a sensual invitation to make love to him and to the listener ready to hear an explicit devotion to African spirituality, they receive both. This is not meant to be an album of orin (traditional praise songs to the Orisa). It does, however, present to this listener as a contemporary, American African album of oríkì (poetry praising the birth of a child and detailing their lineage or telling the story of a deity, circumstance, or even food) about a recent initiate’s (D’Angelo) journey from one life into another (to be clear, I don’t have any inside scoop on D’s spiritual practices or if he’s initiated; this is a speculative meditation). The rhythm and musicality of the album exhibit D’Angelo’s musical and cultural Ancestry, the lyrics detail his intimate experiences with love, lust, heartbreak, getting caught up with a destructive element, and finding his way to his destiny or path. While there is no overt mention of initiation into Lukumí or Isese, Orisa, or other spiritual elements (with the exception of ‘The Root’), I believe D’Angelo shared with us his reflections on his life thus far while he was at a crossroads.
For spiritually inclined musicians who respect musical genealogies, the artist uses their compositions to call forth energies or articulate a meaning via sonic metaphor. For example, John Barnes, the composer of the Daughters of the Dust original film score, incorporated his belief in astrology into his compositions alongside traditional West African worship rituals, Santería, Islam, Catholicism and Baptist beliefs. D’Angelo set up a de facto ile (a spiritual house in Isese and Lukumí that comprises godparents and godchildren working together to actualize their destinies) in Electric Lady Studios with a collective of artists that studied the ways of Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, Prince, Fela Kuti, and so many others. They churned out hundreds of tunes; some are classics reimagined, some are original tracks the artists created, some are for the album, some are for practice, and some for sharpening the artists’ spirit and connection to each other and their mission.
Repetition and improvisational techniques are resonant throughout Voodoo’s composition. These techniques are also key in Southern Black Christian church services (a critical aspect of D’Angelo’s musical training as he served as the choir director in his father’s church in his home of Richmond, Virginia) and in bembes. I posit that Voodoo is intended to be understood through the spiritual resonance of funk, soul, blues, gospel and contains mechanisms for transformation, if the listener is open to it. In an interview with Jet Magazine, D states, “Voodoo is an ancient African tradition. We use “voodoo” in the drums or whatever, the cadences and call-out to our ancestors and that in itself will invoke spirits. And music has the power to do that, to evoke emotions, evoke spirit.” In D and his crew’s creative process and in their instrumental rifts, dizzying grooves, and syncopated beats, they articulate a call and response that unpacks at once what happens in romantic relationships and the state of the relationship between soul and R&B and their children (artists and aficionados alike). The effect it has on this listener and many like me is named well by Kajikawa:
“...in the black religious cultures of the circum-Caribbean and [the] United States alike, repetitive musical practices hold the key for participants to experience moments of spiritual transcendence. (D’Angelo’s Voodoo Technology: African Cultural Memory and the Ritual of Popular Music Consumption. Kajikawa. p. 145.)”
In my conversation with Naomi on themes that present in the album and their relationship to D possibly being an aborisa or olorisa, we note that Voodoo sounds like someone processing a new home, new responsibilities (such as fatherhood and possibly initiation), past hurts, investigating the spiritual and musical lineages they descend from, and practicing aloud adapting to a new home and new responsibilities. Naomi wondered, “When you find yourself in a new place that feels like home, how do you integrate yourself there?” This exploration is common for a young initiate, a new parent, and a person experiencing epiphanies about the traditions that birthed you and the ways of being that a person used to employ. Anyone experiencing dissolution with their ‘present’ and in the midst of or yearning for a transformation could relate to lyrics like:
“Somethin' stirrin' inside of me's (oh me's) gotta be (oh, yeah)
Sole controller in control of me (sole controller, yes, i)
A link in your chain just won't do (just won't do)
I don't want nothin' (i got nothin') to do with you” (Spanish Joint, D’Angelo)
The last one-third of the album, from ‘The Root’ on, feels like “a clearing of self and projecting forward your new self,” to quote Naomi. ‘The Root’ itself can be taken literally as a jilted lover taking revenge on D using hoodoo/rootworking tactics. It also could be read as an indictment of a morally corrupt music industry working its magic to entice and drain the artist who seeks to honor their craft. D “left his mojo in his favorite suit [a bag of charms and prayers meant to protect the wearer from nefarious intent aimed at them],” which feels like the carelessness of someone who’s still transitioning into a consistent spiritual practice (I speak from personal experience). It’s good spiritual hygiene to maintain whatever practice you’ve been prescribed to protect you so leaving behind a mojo in a place where someone could grab it and use it against you is a recipe for the cold and soulless state D is languishing in on ‘The Root.’ From ‘Spanish Joint’ on to the artist’s and the listener's transition back to and resurrection in ‘Africa,’ the desire to feed the spirit authenticity, true love, and connection and hone one’s discipline and discernment calls out to me. ‘Africa’ grounds this sharing of a spiritual journey in reminding us that “when we’re uneasy, it is because we’re not centered in who we are and from whence we come,” a reflection that our team lead LaShay Harvey offered.
In what ways does Voodoo resonate with your spirit? What do its parables relay to you about love and transformation? I wanna know, “how does it feel?” to be in communion with Voodoo, a potential change agent, if you allow it?
I hope you sit with these theories and questions in this 25th year of Voodoo and document what arises. May the music reflect yourself back to you, comfort you, inspire you, ignite you.
