Episode 23: DJ Monalisa on D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar” (1995)

Episode 23

1st March 2018

L.A. DJ extraordinaire, Monalisa, helped take us back to the early days of neo-soul and the style’s golden boy: D’Angelo with his debut 1995 album, “Brown Sugar.” Listen to how we get by.

Episode notes

The album: D’Angelo: Brown Sugar (1995)

DJ Monalisa Murray is an O.G. on the L.A. scene, having made the transition from working in marketing and promotion for record labels to working for herself as one of the Southland’s premier selectors, down with everyone from Umoja Hi-Fi Soundsystem, to Footlong Development, to the KPL All-Stars. For her album choice, she wanted to spin us back to the emergence of D’Angelo and his debut album, Brown Sugar. We talked about how D’Angelo struck a different note than R&B in that era, how his style played to and against hip-hop, and just what exactly “brown sugar” refers to. Spicy. 

More on D’Angelo and Brown Sugar

More on DJ Monalisa

Show Tracklisting (all songs from Brown Sugar unless indicated otherwise):

  • “Brown Sugar”
  • “Jonez In My Bones”
  • Billy Preston: Music is my Life “Will it Go Round in Circles”
  • ”Cruisin
  • D’Angelo: Voodoo “Feel Like Making Love”
  • ”Me And Those Dreaming Eyes of Mine”
  • J Dilla: A.K.A. J. Yancey “Me And Those Dreaming Eyes of Mine [Remix]”
  • ”Shit, Damn, Motherfucker”
  • ”When We Get By”
  • ”Alright”
  • Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers “Brown Sugar”
  • D’Angelo: “She’s Always In My Hair”
  • D’Angelo: Black Messiah “Really Love”

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In this episode...

Guests

  • Monalisa

About the show

Hosted by Oliver Wang and Morgan Rhodes, every episode of Heat Rocks invites a special guest to talk about a heat rock – a hot album, a scorching record. These are in-depth conversations about the albums that shape our lives.

Our guests include musicians, writers, and scholars and though we don’t exclusively focus on any one genre, expect to hear about albums from the worlds of soul, hip-hop, funk, jazz, Latin, and more.

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