This December will mark a decade since D'Angelo delivered third album Black Messiah, and the artist is reportedly hard at work on a follow-up.
The tip comes from friend and collaborator Raphael Saadiq, who shared with the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, "D's in a good space. He's excited. 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.' … He's working on six pieces right now and he seems super excited."
Saadiq, who produced and co-wrote D'Angelo's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)," divulged that one of those aforementioned tracks is one that began its life as a piece for Linwood Rose, the short-lived supergroup including himself, D'Angelo and A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip.
"I think it's going to be a record on D'Angelo's new album when it comes out, a record that we all did together," said Saadiq. "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."
D'Angelo previously teased a Black Messiah "companion piece" in a 2015 conversation with Rolling Stone, saying, "I do want to put a lot of music out there. I feel like, in a lot of respects, that I'm just getting started."
Hear Saadiq's Rolling Stone Music Now podcast appearance below.
In the time since Black Messiah, D'Angelo has contributed original songs to soundtracks of video game Red Dead Redemption 2 and film The Book of Clarence.