“It would bother me a lot of times live when we were touring for ‘Voodoo’ and I had this amazing band, the Soultronics. Questlove was the drummer, [bassist] Pino [Palladino], of course I had the incomparable Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Frank Lacy on trombone. Just this outstanding band, and we were doing some amazing stuff musically. And a lot of times the crowd — or a lot of the ladies were just screaming, ‘Take it off!’ And I kind of felt like, for lack of a better thing, a male stripper, you know? Or I [was] expected to be that, you know what I mean?” D’Angelo explained.
As Smiley pointed out though, “That’s what women feel every day.” And we hope, like many of his female musical counterparts, D’Angelo has now found a way to take ownership of his image and keep fans looking at his art more so than his body.
