D’Angelo on Saturday Night Live: a Celebration of Artistry and the Importance of Black Lives (VIDEO)

 

Oh, be clear: I had absolutely zero behavior while watching D’Angelo on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. I mean, this man could have stood up there and sang the ABCs and I would have considered it an Emmy Award-winning performance, but, of course, he did us all the way right: he sang, “Really Love,” one of my favorites off his new album, “Black Messiah” and then came back later in the show to perform “Charade,” his meditation on the Black Lives Matter movement, replete with a hoodie—in tribute to Trayvon Martin—and his band, The Vanguard, rocking “I Can’t Breathe” and “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts in memory of Eric Garner and Mike Brown.

It was a dope performance and the only reason to watch SNL on Saturday night. Which pretty much makes D’Angelo the Gawd.

The magic of his performance lies in his falsetto, in the beauty of the guitarist’s delicious acoustic melody, in the artistry of The Vanguard, in the starkness of the chalk outline on the stage’s floor—a tribute to the Black bodies lost in this godawful war against our babies. Most certainly that magic lay in the words of D’Angelo’s “Charade”:

Crawling through a systematic maze
And it pains to demise
Pain in our eyes
Strain of drownin’, wading into your lies
Degradation so loud that you can’t hear the sound of our cries (doo, doo)
All the dreamers have gone to the side of the road which we will lay on
Inundated by media, virtual mind fucks in streams

[CHORUS]
All we wanted was a chance to talk
‘Stead we only got outlined in chalk
Feet have bled a million miles we’ve walked
Revealing at the end of the day, the charade

Perpetrators beware say a prayer if you dare for the believers
With a faith at the size of a seed enough to be redeemed (doo doo)
Relegated to savages bound by the way of the deceivers
So anchors be sure that you’re sure we ain’t no amateurs

[CHORUS]
All we wanted was a chance to talk
‘Stead we only got outlined in chalk
Feet have bled a million miles we’ve walked
Revealing at the end of the day, the charade

[BRIDGE]
With the veil off our eyes we’ll truly see
And we’ll march on
And it really won’t take too long
And it really won’t take us very long

The music, the passion, the lessons, D’Angelo’s bold stance, taken on a high-profile, nationally-televised stage on behalf of us, his people, has me feeling every last one of the feels. *sigh* I just love him. I’ve already purchased his album twice—once on iTunes and a CD to play in the car—but I plan to buy copies for all my peoples. D’Angelo is that kind of artist. “Black Messiah” is that kind of album. You should totally add it to your collection. Buy several. And play the album for your babies. With the words in front of them so that they can consider what D’Angelo is saying and conveying in this 12-song masterpiece.

In the meantime, press play up top to see “Charade” and down below to watch D’Angelo perform “Really Love.”