D'Angelo was hyped as a real soul superstar when this album was released in 1995. Brown Sugar was a fresh of breath air at a time when mindless gangster rap and pop soul were breezing through the charts, this album had weight and gravitas and immediately brought to mind the majestic Marvin Gaye and Al Green. For me this album was seminal in helping to return R&B to its roots, while there were some great philly swing bands and some decent soul bands, R&B had been diluted and was more mainstream than pop, but D'Angelo's album proved you can be serious and incredibly cool in making soul, class, attitude and intelligence all key assets in his armoury ...  Read the complete review

When D'Angelo (a singer-songwriter responsible for the 'Black Men United' song "U Will Know") dropped "Brown Sugar" in 1995 as his debut album, he kick-started what would soon be known as Neo-Soul as he came with an R&B album which brought in influences from the Golden Age of Soul in addition to other alternative styles such as Funk, Hip Hop and Jazz (as would be taken on by the likes of Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq and Jill Scott in the future to singlehandedly revolutionise the R&B world. 1. "Brown Sugar" The album gets going with perhaps the biggest track from the album. It is a great way to get things ...  Read the complete review