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D’Angelo ’s passing earlier this month closed the book on one of soul music’s most enigmatic, influential, and fiercely protected careers. With just three studio albums released across two decades — 1995’s Brown Sugar, 2000’s Voodoo, and 2014’s Black Messiah — the neo-soul pioneer reshaped R&B without ever flooding the market. His absence from the spotlight was as defining as his presence in it. And few artists understood that duality more deeply than Questlove, who shared studio space, stage time, and creative DNA with D’Angelo for nearly 30 years.
So when Questlove published a sprawling personal tribute in Rolling Stone on Thursday (Oct. 30), it wasn’t just an obituary — it was the kind of perspective only a brother-in-art could offer. The Roots drummer, producer, and Soulquarians co-architect retraced the relationship that helped shape both Voodoo and Black Messiah, while also paying respect to the quiet genius behind the myth.
Questlove’s tribute takes fans all the way back to 1993, long before D’Angelo became the reclusive icon that defined a generation of musicians. The Roots were finishing Do You Want More?!!!??! when Quest walked into a studio buzzing about “some ‘Mike’” — a young singer-songwriter hailed as the second coming of Marvin Gaye and Al Green. “Then ‘Mike’ walked in,” Quest remembers. “Game over.”
The early bond between the two wasn’t built on reverence or mystique — it was built on jokes, shared food runs, inside-studio chaos, and late-night record nerding. “I know we sold the mysterious seriousness well,” Questlove writes, “but the truth is — we were a silly bunch.” That spirit would eventually evolve into the Soulquarians, the quietly radical collective that included J Dilla, Erykah Badu, Common, James Poyser, Bilal, and others — a movement that rewired the sound of Black music heading into the 2000s.
But the final section of Questlove’s essay is the most revealing: not about music, but about brotherhood. As D’Angelo ’s health declined this year, he canceled what was supposed to be a triumphant headlining return at The Roots Picnic. For the first time in decades, the two weren’t speaking through music — no drums, no Dilla loops, no studio haze, no crowds waiting on a comeback. Just conversation.
“I have to say, the last weeks with him were probably the best for our friendship,” Questlove writes. “We hadn’t talked all that deep since that day back in 1996, talking about our hometowns and high school and our churches and our fathers and how we escaped it all.”
D’Angelo ’s legacy won’t be measured by volume, output, or chart stats. It’s in the musicians who still reference Voodoo like a sacred text, the songwriters digging for pocket and texture, and the fans who understood that some artists don’t disappear — they withdraw to protect the last real part of themselves.
And if Questlove’s tribute makes anything clear, it’s this: behind the mystique was a friend, a joker, a thinker, a craftsman, and a man who made music that outlived the moments he was willing to stand in front of it.
