D'Angelo Chokes Up During This Heartbreaking Cover of Prince's 'Sometimes It Snows in April'
Sitting down for a rare interview last year after the surprise release his masterpiece return album Black Messiah, D'Angelo told RBMA Radio about how much Prince influenced him. "I remember we had [For You], and my brothers were just enamored by this guy," D'Angelo said. "They told me, 'He plays everything, he writes everything, he's singing everything,' so I was hooked from then on. I learned how to play every song on that album, note for note, at five years old." Decades later, D'Angelo is the Prince for a different generation. No artist today exudes raw sexuality both visually-think the Voodoo cover, the "Untitled (How Does it Feel)" video, and just listen to the first verse of "Brown Sugar"-than D'Angelo. He's carried Prince's legacy of funk and R&B into the hip-hop era.
Last night during the final verse of a brilliant and heartbreaking cover of "Sometimes It Snows in April," D'Angelo replaced the name "Tracy" in the song, singing, "I often dream of heaven and I know that Prince is there." Then he pauses, he takes a breath to go into the next line, and stops. He looks down. He shakes his head. His backup singers, Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum, finish the lyrics for him: "I know that he has found another friend."
Prince's music has not only come to shape D'Angelo's style, but also his most influential musical friendship and partnership. In a moment that has come to define modern soul, R&B, and hip-hop, Questlove and D'Angelo first bonded over a Prince song during a Roots concert in the mid-'90s. Ever since then the two have become close collaborators, close friends, and kindred spirits who have recreated a genre. It's funny how The Tonight Show has become this catalyst for Prince tributes. Jimmy Fallon has all of these weird funny stories with the late legend. And Questlove, who of course is the bandleader of The Tonight Show's house band The Roots, has always been close to Prince and his music.
There have been many Prince covers in the last week, and all of them have been nods of respect to the legend. But this cover-in terms of its place in music history, and raw emotion-is the most important one you'll hear. Listen to the original below:
