15 Years Later, D’Angelo’s Voodoo Is Celebrated Through Questlove’s Quirky Tour Diaries

Along with The LOX’s We Are The Streets and Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele, yesterday (January 25) marked the 15th anniversary of D’Angelo’s sophomore LP, Voodoo. Few could have imagined that of that trifecta of great albums, that D’Angelo would only one month ago follow it up, The LOX have not, and G.F.K. would drop more than nine solo albums—with a host of side projects since the opening month of 2000.

dangelo-voodoo

As for D’Angelo, allow Questlove—who worked extensively on Voodoo as well as 2014’s Black Messiah to recap the platinum Virgin Records album, and its subsequent tour—in style. On OkayPlayer, The Roots’ drummer and band leader unearthed some diaries from D’Angelo’s Voodoo Tour. Always an early adapter, Ahmir Thompson’s typed down notes almost read like tweets, as he flips out to self around “Baywatch” and “In Living Color” stars—as well as showgoers including the late Whitney Houston and recently-retired XXX star, Kitten.

Here’s one such entry, from the second show (and second entry) of the concerts:

@L.A.’s SOOOO my City / 02-Mar-00 / 07:03 AMWhat do you think?
2. Opening Night A La Hollywood

Oh yeah, L.A, sun fun & Baywatch .. .with a pinch of D’Angelo in1
some leather pants . . .shirtless. Sometimes things manage to
hurt your eyeballs – sunsets, lunar eclipse, the little pelvic
area that Mr. ‘Angelo reveals, tauntingly . . . hate ‘em. The
power of that man. Garbrielle Bouvywhatever, Chaka Khan, Tracey
Bingham, Jamie Foxx, Tommy Davidson, Dr. Dre . . .wait a minute .
. . .DR.DRE? Oh yeah, w/wifely talking about “you’ve improved
our marriage. ” the man improves marriages y’all. Music,
banging . . .?uestlove got thunderous applause, James Poyser,
Kelo on sounds . . . that crew sounds vaguely familiar. In any
event, it takes the L.A. crowd a bit longer than most to stop
thinking they’re cute and actually get into the music. This
group is such a loving, open group, it’s almost a shame to call
it work. Though, that’ll probably last about as long as it takes
for someone to ask me to get them a beer! I’m sure there will be
more celebrity freaks to come . . . it’s only Wednesday . . .

Even Soulquarians get a little starstruck. It’s interesting to think that by 2000, Dr. Dre had already begun closely working with Scott Storch (“Still D.R.E.”), who cut his teeth with The Roots crew.

In addition to those available for perusal now, Okayplayer promises more of these, after a handful shared within the first batch.

Related: D’Angelo’s One-Hour 2014 AFROPUNK FEST Performance, In Full (Video)