D'Angelo Working On Follow Up To 'Black Messiah'

D'Angelo tends to let his music speak for itself.  But every once in a while he'll do an interview and spill the goods. With Black Messiah still fresh in the minds of his fans, D'Angelo told Rolling Stone he is already working on his next album. It won't take another 14 years, and is considered a continuation.

"What I'm working on now is like a companion piece. I hope people receive it that way. It's part of the same vision," he said .

In the interview, he also revealed some of the reasons why Black Messiah took so long to come out. "There were moving parts — management changes, record-company changes. Virgin Records went defunct, and before that, they went through personnel changes.," he says. D'Angelo goes on to talk about what the label ultimately wanted vs. what he wanted to make and how that caused friction.

"The label wanted a Voodoo part two. At one point, after Voodoo, I was early in the process of working on new music that would eventually be on Black Messiah, and I let the label know where I was at with it. The music was pretty ahead of the curve, and they weren't ready for that. They had these young college kids coming in as A&R, trying to tell me, "You should get so-and-so to produce this track, or you should get so-and-so to spit 16 on this." I remember walking out of a meeting like, "Fuck you, fuck this!" The biggest factor in all of it was money. They cut off funding, and I had to go on the road to generate money on my own to fund the recording."