It’s been 20 years, and D’Angelo’s album ‘Voodoo’ still has me cast under a spell.
By Charise Frazier
I can’t remember if it was the click of the snare, the tingle of the hi-hat, or the robust bass line, but one afternoon in January 2000 I was lured into watching D’Angelo belt out "Untitled (How Does It Feel),” one of the biggest singles off of his sophomore effort, Voodoo. My eyes averted to his body, shirtless and showcasing his muscles and perfect brown skin. I was a 14-year-old high school freshman filled with shock and intrigue, experiencing pure lust for the first time.
At the time, all of the adults around me invented stake in my body and virginity, causing me to weigh my worth in it. A year prior, I had symbolically married God in a vow of chastity ceremony at my church, heavily promoted by the male youth pastors and equally encouraged by the women. During the ceremony, we wore all white and were given gold wedding bands to wear on our ring fingers. I was embossed in a feeling of validation, provided by a sexist and misogynistic ceremony that assured my parents and my God that my legs would remain closed until marriage.
I was also reckoning with the dynamics of growing up in Southern California, a place that could, and often did, strip me of any semblance of romance. To many of the Black boys around me my dark skin, African features and coarse hair removed me from the realm of courtship. Friend? Yes. But the object of affection? Not in the least. Thus, it was easy for me to run straight into the arms of chastity, because there was nothing to compromise it.
Yet there D’Angelo stood on that particular afternoon, naked and confident in his delivery, singing a song to an unnamed woman with unbridled passion. As I watched his frame thrust against the black abyss, it felt like it was just he and I in the room. If he looked anywhere on camera, I looked too. When he stared straight on, I felt his eyes directly fixated on me. And I wasn’t alone. Friends of mine came to a similar awakening because of this video, getting as close as we could to the TV screen while the camera slowly panned south, revealing nothing but his Adonis belt. Writer Danyel Smith recalled a similar experience while watching the video at a hair salon:
“Last week, I was at the hair salon, which is always a bustle of activity, people hollering for hair dye...BET and MTV are on all day long with no one paying too much attention, but when that video came on, you could've heard a bobby pin drop. All the women just watched in silence, and when the video was over, there was a collective sigh of 'Oh my God! He is beautiful!’”
The word “voodoo” is defined as, “a Black religious cult practiced in the Caribbean and the southern U.S. characterized by sorcery and spirit possession,” which accurately describes what happened next. I knew I had no Black ass business watching the video, but I was enamored and looked for ways to feed the beast. If there was a photo of D’Angelo in a magazine, I ripped it out and taped it to my wall. If there was an article written about him, I read it. I became possessed by some force and seemingly created an altar to D’Angelo, the source of my lust and the object of my affection. What previously felt like a feeling reserved only for the marital bed now felt both acceptable and attainable.
The feeling was complicated for me. And I would later learn it was for him as well.
The newfound assertion of D’Angelo as a sex symbol because of the video contributed significantly to the album’s commerical performance. At the same time, the “Untitled” video was as much of a stark departure from his chaste church upbringing as it was for me. Questlove, who served as producer for Voodoo and musical director for "The Voodoo Tour," claimed that D’Angleo, as a result his sex symbol status, “...wants to get fat. He doesn’t want his braider braiding every nook and cranny of his hair. He doesn’t wanna have to have ripples in his stomach. He doesn’t want the pressure of being 'Untitled' the video.”
20 years have passed since D’Angelo gave us Voodoo. For nostalgia's sake, I listened to the album the other day as a now 34-year-old woman, reflecting on D’Angelo’s duality, as well as my own. It goes without saying that our experiences and expectations as a Black man and Black woman in the eyes of God were, and are, different. But what is true for the both of us—children of the church taught to honor and glorify God in all that we do, is that Voodoo proved to be a stark departure from the word. Within this classic body of work, he sought to reckon with sexuality, drugs, fatherhood, romance, mental health and generational curses. In Voodoo we are presented with an artist examining the origins of his beginnings, being in the world and fighting, fighting, to not be swallowed up in it. And “Untitled” for me, remains a pivotal moment in my unique, yet beautiful transition into understanding my sexual power and autonomy. “Untitled” represents the mark where I learned the power of lust—reclaiming my sexuality as something that was indeed sacred, but ratified through my own will.