D'Angelo returning to Los Angeles with House of Blues concert

R&B recluse D'Angelo is in hiding no more. After appearing with the Roots at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Tennessee in June, the sonic manipulator of funk and soul has booked a surprise July 4 date at West Hollywood's House of Blues, according to promoter Live Nation.

The Bonnaroo appearance marked the artist's first U.S. gig in 12 years, and catching D'Angelo at the House of Blues won't be cheap. Tickets are going for $129, once all the requisite fees have been added in. Tickets are on sale now (yes, now) via the Live Nation mobile app. The general on-sale date is Friday at 10 a.m.

D'Angelo has more than 30 songs ready to be released, according to friend, collaborator and Roots drummer Questlove. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Questlove said D'Angelo had recently "discovered Bowie and Zeppelin, the Beatles, 'Pet Sounds,' Captain Beefheart and Zappa," adding that the new works see D'Angelo experimenting more with guitars. It may or may not be coming out in late summer/early fall, according to Questlove. 

D'Angelo has released just two studio albums, works that in 1995 and 2000 helped usher in the neo-soul movement and then toyed with the genre. His last, 2000's "Voodoo," is considered a masterpiece that some say is on par with the best of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. It's a dark, daring collection, with songs seemingly materializing out of foggy, middle-of-the-night jam sessions. Since then, D'Angelo has retreated to Europe and had some run-ins with the law, but all reports out of Bonnaroo are that the artist hasn't lost a step.

After the July 4 gig in West Hollywood, D'Angelo is set to appear at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. 

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-- Todd Martens

Image: D'Angelo at the House of Blues in 2000. Credit: Ann Johansson / For The Times.

In Rotation: The Roots' 'Undun'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

If the Roots ever decide to slow down, one of them should write a business book, because over the course of their varied and inspired musical life, the East Coast hip-hop band has gradually and impressively built a career unmatched in the realm of popular music, let alone rap. From its rise as the go-to live rap act to its career as a backing unit for singers and rappers such as Jay-Z, John Legend and Betty Wright, to its current pop culture peak as the house band on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” the Roots have not only survived but prevailed.

More impressively, the Roots have stayed vital over 25 years, and the evidence lies in their 10th studio recording, “Undun,” a rolling concept album whose central character is based on the protagonist within indie pop singer Sufjan Stevens’ song “Redmond,” which the Roots cover on the new record. Long committed to pushing at the edges of the relatively conservative major-label hip-hop offerings, the Roots draw from not only the loop-based world of commercial rap, but understand — and honor — the more far-reaching connections on “Undun.” From the weird quiet rhythms of the opener, “Sleep,” to the hard rock funk of “Kool On,” whose backing track and guitar sounds suggest Jimi Hendrix’s work with Band of Gypsies, the band’s chops are as tight and solid as ever.

Questlove says NBC clearing 'Fallon' songs after Bachmann flap

Looks like NBC doesn’t have the same snarky sense of humor as Jimmy Fallon and the Roots.

The network is now vetting set lists from the “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” house band, The Roots, after a flap last month involving Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. When Bachmann appeared as a guest, the band performed a snippet of Fishbone’s 1985 track “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” as the walk-on music that accompanied her.

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, bandleader Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson revealed he now has to clear each song with three different executives. He also isn’t allowed to bring up the Bachmann incident to his more than 1 million followers on Twitter.

Album review: The Roots' 'undun'

The Roots’ latest studio album is an artful melding of experimental jazz, ’70s R&B, guitar rock flourishes, wall-shattering beats and rhymes that take a scalpel to the existential angst of the hip-hop generation. It’s both bleak and unexpectedly beautiful.

It’s a tale told in reverse, narrated postmortem by its 25-year-old protagonist, Redford Stephens. The CD starts with his death (“There I go, from a man to a memory / Damn, I wonder if my fam will remember me…”) and moves backward through his ill-fated young life. One of “undun’s” greatest strengths is its use of guest artists; the varied styles of rappers and singers including Phonte, Dice Raw, Bilal Oliver, Truck North and Big K.R.I.T. represent the tangled layers of Stephens’ thoughts — the criminal minded, the philosophical and the places where those two personalities collide.

Album Review: Betty Wright and the Roots' 'Betty Wright: The Movie'

You can understand Betty Wright’s investment in a tune like “Old Songs,” the golden-days encomium that opens her first studio album since 2001. A longtime R&B fixture who’s never quite managed to break into the mainstream, Wright has for years complemented her work as an artist with production and vocal-coach gigs with the likes of Janet Jackson and Joss Stone; old songs and her proximity to them are more or less where Wright’s professional leverage lies. As sensible as it may be, the priggish nostalgia of “Old Songs” — in which she admonishes younger singers who don’t write their own material — is still a bummer to behold.

Mercifully, Wright dials down the schoolmarm vibe elsewhere on “Betty Wright: The Movie,” for which she recruited the Roots as a backing band. (The Philadelphia combo performed a similar task on Al Green’s excellent 2008 disc, “Lay It Down.”) Yet the entire record feels suffused with longing for an earlier era — or perhaps, befitting Wright’s lengthy career, several earlier eras: In “Tonight Again” she revives the plush sound of mid-’70s quiet storm, while “In the Middle of the Game (Don’t Change the Play)” floats atop a Chic-style disco-soul groove. Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg’s cameos in “Grapes on a Vine” and “Real Woman,” respectively, seem designed to connect the singer with hip-hop fans who’ve unwittingly heard her music in sampled form. In both cases, though, the rappers bend toward Wright, not vice versa.

 

Betty Wright and the Roots

"Betty Wright: The Movie"

(Ms. B/S-Curve)

Two and a half stars (Out of four)

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--Mikael Wood

Live review: Kanye West, Queen Latifah highlight 'Common & Friends' benefit show

“I’ve been to a lot of charity events, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Old-school rapper Heavy D surveyed the sold-out Hollywood Palladium crowd gathered for the second annual “Common & Friends,” a star-studded affair that featured appearances from a seemingly endless cavalcade of A-list hip-hop stars to benefit Common's Common Ground charity.

The audience had already seen a series of highlights. De La Soul opened the show with a quick, high-energy set, punctuated by a surprise appearance from masked rapper MF Doom, who ferociously ripped through his verse from “Rock Co.Kane Flow.”

Black Thought and Amir “Questlove” Thompson represented for the Roots, and Ludacris ignited concertgoers with a crowd-pleasing set that culminated with “I Do It for Hip-Hop.” The latter allowed him to introduce Nas, who appears on the recorded version (video here).

After a simmering take on “One Mic,” Nas looked on in appreciation as the night’s host, Common, proceeded to spit most of Nas’ “N.Y. State of Mind” verbatim.

The crowd was also treated to an impromptu Black Star reunion, with Mos Def and Talib Kweli hitting the stage together. The two galvanized the audience with solo hits “Umi Says” and “Get By,”  respectively.

But it was Heavy D who offered up one of the most surprising highlights of the show. Among the many unbilled performers of the evening, even those too young to remember Heavy D's late '80s/early '90s hits such as “We Got Our Own Thang” and “Now That We Found Love,” responded to his showmanship and the enduring qualities of the songs.

Word had been circulating throughout the day that one Kanye West would also be among the surprise performers, a fact that Common teased the audience with briefly.

“He’s still going through some things, trying to deal with everything that’s happened because of a choice he made, so he couldn't make it tonight” Common said, obviously referencing West’s meme-generating mike grab from Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV VMAs. “But he still wanted me to send his love to everyone.”