D’Angelo Makes First Live Appearance in 12 Years at Bonnaroo

After 12 years of a self-imposed sabbatical, it looks like D’Angelo is officially back. The mercurial R&B crooner joined the Roots for a “Superjam” session at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., early Sunday morning (June 10).

The Funk It Blog was there to capture his first U.S. performance (with full-length MP3 audio!) as D’Angelo rocked the stage for 90-minutes with the Philadelphia hip-hop band. The singer performed stirring renditions of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Have You Ever Been,’ Ohio Players’ and ‘Fire,’ Parliament Funkadelic’s ‘Funky Dollar Bill,’ The Time’s ‘My Summertime Thang,’ among other songs. D’ Angelo, wearing a black tank top, matching jeans and a black-and-white bandanna wrapped around his Afro-dreads, was visibly enjoying himself and interacting with crowd.

Roots’ drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson hopes that with this jam session, it will finally convince D’ Angelo to release his looong-awaited follow-up to his 2000 LP ‘Voodoo.’

“I wanted him to see that,” he tells the Associated Press (via EW). “That’s a green light. Me doing it wasn’t, like, running out of jam partners. Me doing it was basically showing him, ‘Look, you are so missed you don’t even realize how much you are missed,’ hoping that this will be the adrenaline boost that will finally get him to turn his record into the label.”

“It’s done, it’s brilliant. I played on it. I know it’s brilliant,” he continues. “Now it’s just time to let his kids go and show it to the world. That’s what I’m here for.”

Thank you, Questlove.

Watch D’Angelo +The Roots’ Bonnaroo SuperJam Session