How D'Angelo changed music, in three songs

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On October 14th, the visionary musician D’Angelo passed away at 51 years old. Only releasing three albums during his lifetime, he synthesized influences from gospel, jazz, rock, and hip-hop to create a singular and transcendent sound artists still try – and fail – to emulate today. On this special episode of Switched On Pop, Charlie and Nate are joined by producer Reanna and engineer Brandon to celebrate D’Angelo through his music, discussing one song from each of his albums and highlighting his musical genius. Songs Discussed D’Angelo – Untitled (How Does It Feel) D’Angelo – Brown Sugar The Hawkins Family – What Is This? D’Angelo – Feel Like Makin’ Love Roberta Flack – Feel Like Makin’ Love Parliament – Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) D’Angelo – Cruisin’ Smokey Robinson – Cruisin’ D’Angelo – The Charade Curtis Mayfield – (Don’t Worry) If There Is A Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The world is changing faster than ever. Now, with The Economist Insider, a new premium video offering,
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0:10.6	table at NATO. There is an incoming missile attack now. Could you answer the question? I'm sorry,
0:15.3	we've got way little time left. With a few surprises along the way. I can't promise we'll have a cocktail
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0:28.8	Go to Economist.com to join the conversation.
0:40.5	Welcome to Switch on Bob. I'm producer Rihanna Cruz.
0:41.9	I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.
0:43.6	I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.
0:45.7	And I'm engineer Brandon McFarlane. So the four of us have convened today to celebrate the life and career and above all music of the immensely talented multi-instrumentalist and performer
0:57.2	DeAngelo. We haven't talked about DeAngelo on Switched on Pop since episode 158, where Charlie and
1:05.2	Nate, you two, talk to the writer of the 33 and a third book on DeAngelo's second record,
1:11.4	Voodoo. Faith Panic, yeah, that's a great convo on DeAngelo's second record Voodoo.
1:13.6	Faith Panic, yeah, that's a great convo.
1:16.8	DeAngelo is a musician who has so much impact.
1:23.4	You can see it in the slew of tributes from collaborators and fans alike, on social media, in print outlets.
1:29.7	And since we are all fans to varying degrees, today is going to be all about DiAngelo. Yeah, man. Yeah, man, that was DeAngelo's untitled off the voodoo album.
1:51.8	Man, I haven't heard that song in a while.
1:53.7	Album came out when I was maybe a sophomore in high school.
1:57.1	I connected to this album in DeAngelo from the very beginning, like so hard, I think, because the music really spoke to me as not only a hip-hop head, but as a church baby.
2:11.1	DeAngelo's a church baby. I'm a church baby. I grew up in a church where music was so much of my daily life. And so I always felt this
	...

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