The allure of D’Angelo began in 1995 on his debut single “Brown Sugar,” where he emerged as a nostalgic figure in modern soul. Armed with a honeyed voice and hip-hop swagger, D’Angelo was equal parts Marvin Gaye and LL Cool J, the consummate musician and the coolest guy in the room. It’s like he’d been here before and knew how to do it right this time. His blend of 1970s R&B and hip-hop felt uniquely vintage and modern. He appealed to wide swaths of listeners and helped usher in a new strain of black music.

Brown Sugar, D’Angelo’s debut, became an important forebear of what’s now called neo-soul. Released before Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (1996) and Erykah Badu’s Baduizm (1997), D’Angelo changed the sound of R&B while paying homage to its pioneers: Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield and the like. And to think, the album was essentially a small-scale event compared to its follow-ups—the groundbreaking Voodoo and the eruption of Black Messiah. No, Brown Sugar was truly bedroom soul: “I wrote (…) the majority of that record in my bedroom in Richmond,” D’Angelo recalled in 2014. “And all of the demos for it were done on a four-track.”