Erykah Badu Shouts ‘D’Angelo!’ In Raw On-Stage Moment
During a recent performance, Erykah Badu shared a heartbreaking tribute to her longtime friend and collaborator, the late D’Angelo. She spoke directly to the audience about death and said, “The first is when your heart stops beating and you don’t have any function anymore in your brain and your body lays limp. That’s the first death.”
She continued, “The second death, it occurs the last time someone says your name, the last time someone sings your song, the last time someone admires your art; the very last time, that’s the second death.”
“When you cease to exist on this planet, the mere thought of you keeps you alive. We will always see you,” she paused, then she called out, “D’Angelo!” The crowd erupted in applause, and Badu stood there, somber. She then went into a version of “On & On” that wasn’t her own hit song, but a tribute to D’Angelo’s “Jonz In My Bonz.” She then slides into “Sh*t D*mn M*ther F*cker,” another one of D’Angelo’s records.
Badu recently appeared on The NY Times’ Popcast before D’Angelo’s untimely passing and spoke with hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli about when she first discovered his music while working at Grinders, a coffee shop in Dallas. She told the podcast, “Somebody was playing D’Angelo’s new album, ‘Brown Sugar.’ It was so refreshing to me, because I was working on music and really wanted to meet him and make something with him.” And she did. The two did “Your Precious Love” and were featured on The Root’s “The ‘Notic.”
Badu’s Popcast recollection also traces a crucial career moment. Her demo reached D’Angelo’s manager, Kedar Massenburg, which set in motion the steps that would help launch her own career. She later opened for D’Angelo at Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth. Badu shared a part of her and D’Angelo’s connection in a social post, where she shared that Massenburg became her label “prez.”
Also in that post, she said, “I had never heard or seen anything like this in this world. He had an old thing that had been hidden, buried for a long time. I recognized it right away.” Those words reveal how intimately artists of that era fed off one another, and she and D’Angelo were no different. Hearing Badu’s cry out to D’Angelo and sonic tribute are a reminder that our gratitude for D’Angelo’s immense gift can and will keep him alive.
