Michael Eugene Archer aka D’Angelo is an R&B and neo-soul musician and producer.
Note the GQ magazine (“Amen! (D’Angelo’s Back),” June 2012 AD) intro to the interview between Amy Wallace and D’Angelo (from the angels):
He was once hailed as the next Marvin Gaye. Then, after his ripped body threatened to overshadow his music, he vanished into addiction. So what the hell was he doing recently singing his heart out in a Pentecostal church in Stockholm? And how are his abs? Amy Wallace witnessed D’Angelo’s ecstatic return to the stage—and hung out with the master of the sacred and the profane as he finishes his first album in a dozen years.
Wallace wrote:
Shame, guilt, repentance—D’Angelo knows them well. To say that he was raised religious doesn’t begin to capture it. He’s the son and the grandson of Pentecostal preachers. To D’Angelo, good and evil are not abstract concepts but tangible forces he reckons with every day. In his life and in his music, he has always felt the tension between the sacred and the profane, the darkness and the light.
Here are some interesting remarks by D’Angelo:
“You know what they say about Lucifer, right, before he was cast out?” D’Angelo asks me now. “Every angel has their specialty, and his was praise. They say that he could play every instrument with one finger and that the music was just awesome. And he was exceptionally beautiful, Lucifer—as an angel, he was.”
But after he descended into hell, Lucifer was fearsome, he tells me. “There’s forces that are going on that I don’t think a lot of [expletive removed] that make music today are aware of,” he says. “It’s deep. I’ve felt it. I’ve felt other forces pulling at me.” He stubs out his cigarette and leans toward me, taking my hand. “This is a very powerful medium that we are involved in,” he says gravely. “I learned at an early age that what we were doing in the choir was just as important as the preacher. It was a ministry in itself. We could stir the pot, you know? The stage is our pulpit, and you can use all of that energy and that music and the lights and the colors and the sound. But you know, you’ve got to be careful.”
It is unclear what he means by “what they say” but whoever “they” are, they are inaccurate; let us take this point by point.
“Lucifer” is a Latinized construction of the Hebrew heylel which appear in Isaiah 14.
Lucifer was fired, as it were, from his original job as a throne guardian but still had to report to YHVH. Revelation 12 notes when he was “cast out” which appears to have been during Jesus’ lifetime; this means that he was then permanently kept out of heaven and on the Earth.
“Every angel” may have a specialty but Lucifer is not an Angel, he is a Cherub (see Ezekiel 28).
Again, “They say” but they are clearly just inventing things as the Bible nowhere states that “he could play every instrument with one finger,” etc.
Lucifer did not and has not “descended into hell” but will be condemned to go there in the future—not as king or tormentor but as tormented, see Revelation 20.
D’Angelo does seem to hit the nail on the head in that “There’s forces that are going on…This is a very powerful medium that we are involved in.”
Indeed, all you have to do is listen to the lyrics, watch the videos and concerts of most popular groups and you will hear sex, drugs, violence, the occult, immorality, etc.
Something that D’Angelo realized is also being realized by many other musicians: they are preaching and doing so in a behind the scenes, that is; unrealized by most.
For example, Kanye West stated:
People have their own religion. Hip hop is a religion to a certain extent and the rappers are the preachers. And the music is the scripture. You know, it’s just like church because you go to a concert, you, you, you, raise your hands in the air, you get dressed up, you sing songs and you definitely pay some money. It’s just like church.
In fact, KRS-One has taken this to an extreme or, rather, its logical conclusion and actually founded his own religion and wrote his own “bible,” see: KRS-One’s Hip Hop new world order one world religion
Indeed, “you’ve got to be careful.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.