D’Angelo Pays Tribute To Prince With A Rendition Of “Venus De Milo” (Audio)
As much as anyone since, D’Angelo is a disciple of Prince. The artist’s fingerprints are all over D’Angelo’s music, from the falsetto and stacked harmonies of “Me & Those Dreamin’ Eyes of Mine” to the explicit Prince homage that is “Untitled (How Does It Feel).” D’Angelo also has covered numerous Prince songs, most notably “She’s Always In My Hair,” from the Scream 2 soundtrack. And, although D’Angelo is also one of the most gifted musicians on the planet, he and fellow Prince devotee Questlove, fully admit that they were nervous when they had the opportunity to actually perform with their idol, back in the late 90s. Yesterday (April 25), Questlove paid tribute to Prince with a moving essay about how Prince shaped him personally and professionally, and now D’s tribute has surfaced.
Like Quest, D’Angelo also lets his fingers do the talking, in celebrating Prince. However, instead of using the pen, D turns to the keyboards, playing a particularly mournful version of “Venus De Milo,” from Parade, the soundtrack to Prince’s movie Under The Cherry Moon. D’Angelo slows down the tempo on the all-instrumental song, pausing for a few seconds for a moment of silence. While the track, which plays more like an interlude, may seem like an unlikely selection from Prince’s vast catalog, it’s role in the film, which is about the loss of a loved one, is a fitting nod to the artist who also penned the song “Sometimes It Snows In April,” for the soundtrack, with a chorus of “Sometimes it snows in April. Sometimes I feel so bad. Sometimes I wish that life was never ending. And all good things, they say, never last.”