Justin Timberlake Pays Emotional Tribute to D’Angelo For Inspiring Him: ‘You Took R&B And Put It In All Capitals’

Justin Timberlake joined the large and passionate chorus of musicians and fans paying tribute to R&B icon D’Angelo pursuing the singer’s death connected Tuesday (Oct. 14) astatine property 51 pursuing a agelong conflict with pancreatic cancer.

In a heartfelt Instagram Story station connected Tuesday night, Timberlake went heavy connected however overmuch D’Angelo’s euphony meant to him and inspired his ain music, arsenic good arsenic reminiscing astir the archetypal clip they met. “I’ll ne'er hide hearing Brown Sugar for the archetypal time. It changed me. You changed me,” JT wrote astir D’Angelo’s beloved 1995 debut album, which is considered a chromatic acold neo psyche classical acknowledgment to the silky creaseless rubric way and his indelible, languid screen of Smokey Robinson’s 1979 azygous “Cruisin’.”

“It was the astir pivotal infinitesimal successful establishing assurance successful my ain voice,” Memphis autochthonal Timberlake continued. “For the archetypal time, I heard a dependable that reflected the sounds I grew up with — early R&B, but ‘now’ it was intertwined with a modern edge. The chords and statement carried a substance of church/jazz/funk. The harmonies delicately dancing with 1 another. It sat successful my tone and ever will.”

The “SexyBack” vocalist besides had precocious praise for D’Angelo’s 2000 sophomore album, Voodoo, which critics and fans agreed was good worthy the five-year hold acknowledgment to specified soul-stirring, slow-cooking burners arsenic “Devil’s Pie,” “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” and the Method Man/Redman squad up “Left and Right.”

“And then???! Voodoo??? Where bash I statesman with this one???,” Timberlake wrote. “Maybe my favourite mixed medium of each time. The rawness, that took clip to cultivate and process. Created an perfectly transcendent listening experience. The legendary players and collaborators, the sounds, the mode it made colors creation astir my head. It grabbed me, it shook me, I was changed erstwhile again.”

Timberlake besides shared a photograph of the archetypal clip the 2 singers met backstage astatine Radio City Music Hall, wherever the then-19-year-old lad bander saw D’Angelo connected his Voodoo tour. In the snap, D’Angelo has his limb astir Timberlake’s enarthrosis arsenic the 2 men look into the camera.

“The Voodoo circuit astatine Radio City was 1 of the champion performance experiences of my life,” Timberlake wrote. “You. Quest. Pino. Poyser. And everyone connected that signifier had conscionable ripped the faces disconnected that crowd. And past I was fortunate capable to drawback a ineffable infinitesimal with you backstage and archer you however successful awe of you I was. (The representation earlier is from that moment…) You were kind, under-spoken. I volition ne'er hide that.”

Though D’Angelo lone released 3 workplace albums successful his lifetime, Timberlake said helium was afloat determination for each note, besides lavishing praise connected D’s 3rd — and astatine this point, last — studio album, 2014’s Black Messiah. Saying helium could “go connected and on” astir that LP oregon his f...