D’Angelo Is Actively Working On ‘Black Messiah’ Follow-Up, Per Raphael Saadiq

D’Angelo is back… well, almost.

The crooner is reportedly actively at work on his next album, a decade after Black Messiah — according to longtime friend and collaborator, Raphael Saadiq.

“D’s in a good space. He’s excited,” Saadiq told Rolling Stone. “He’s like, ‘You gotta play bass. I’ve got this track. I’m telling you, you got to get on it. It got your name all over it.’“

Saadiq teased that the Brown Sugar singer is “working on six pieces right now and he seems super excited.”

Shortly after the release of Black Messiah in 2014, D’Angelo explained to the outlet that the hiatus that predicated that drop wouldn’t continue. “I do want to put a lot of music out there,” he noted. “I feel like, in a lot of respects, that I’m just getting started.”

Among the new music set to come from the Virginia native is a song from Linwood Rose — the temporary supergroup that was formed by D’Angelo, Saadiq, and Q-Tip.

Saadiq shared, “I think it’s going to be a record on D’Angelo’s new album when it comes out […] Linwood Rose lives. I’m playing bass, D’s playing, me and D is singing backgrounds. It’s funky as hell, too. It’s like, D is a bad boy. It’s aged well. Good music ages well.”

When he and D’Angelo first began working together in 1995, the former Tony! Toni! Toné! member revealed that they bonded over their mutual love of gospel. “I think more of his soul came from his gospel roots, not Prince, but Prince had a huge gospel background, too. He was able to camouflage it a lot in his songwriting. And I think D’Angelo is the same way, too.”

Not many more details on D’Angelo’s next project were provided by Saadiq, but fans are already buzzing about his return.