From Left to Right: The Conflicted Theology of Michael Eugene Archer

“There’s forces that are going on that I don’t think a lot of motherfuckers that make music today are aware of. “It’s deep. I’ve felt it. I’ve felt other forces pulling at me. This is a very powerful medium that we are involved in. I learned at an early age that what we were doing in the choir was just as important as the preacher. It was a ministry in itself. We could stir the pot, you know? The stage is our pulpit, and you can use all of the energy and that music and the lights and the colors and the sound. But you know, you’ve got to be careful.” — D’Angelo to GQ Magazine (2012)

I first heard the bass guitar in church. Its hypnotic rhythm liberated bodies in a manner I most associated with family reunions and that “brown juice” the grown folks sipped on. The church elders weren’t too fond of the instrument though. It spoke their language but through a vernacular reminiscent of past lives, they hoped to forget. Somebody had let outside come into the house of the Lord. Much of my life has been spent with one foot in and one foot out of that house. I’ve laid in the bed of a woman to whom I was not wed and shortly thereafter said my nightly prayers just the same. And in both instances, the name of Jesus was very much involved. Duality is a motherfucker that way. It’s a duality I’ve never quite been able to articulate but heard many times before. We met at First Baptist Church on Penn Avenue. I heard it again in the back of my mother’s ’92 Camry while listening to Marvin’s I Want You. Twenty-five years ago, I was reintroduced to it by Michael Eugene Archer.

Voodoo — January 25, 2000

It is this duality that brings us here today.

“My father was a bishop. My grandfather is an elder… Both pastors of their own church. My mother and my aunts, they couldn’t wear skirts. They couldn’t wear makeup, no jewelry. I still grew up with those same values; you know what I mean. It’s still very much a part of who I am and what my music is about, too, man.” — D’Angelo, Voodoo EPK (2000)

Any reading of Archer or his work must acknowledge the Pentecostal tradition from which he was birthed. The son of a preacher, Archer honed his virtuosity in the church, using his gifts for purposes earmarked by the religiosity of his upbringing. As my grandmother would say when I’d sneak off to touch our church’s organ, “That’s not for play, baby; that’s for praise.” But is there a difference between play and praise? To perform as Archer could, I would argue, is a call to play, even in the context of the Black church. Yet, for many of the faithful who fill church pews, play is seen as a worldly construct incompatible with the sanctity of praise. This tension was a cross that Archer bore throughout his life.

“They used to say this when I was going to church… They used to say, ‘Don’t go up there for no form or fashion.’ So I guess what that means [is], listen, we up here singing for the Lord, so don’t be up here trying to be cute. We don’t care about all that we just want to feel what the Spirit is moving through you. It’s the best place to learn that. You shut yourself down and you let whatever’s coming through you.” — D’Angelo, Red Bull Music Academy (2015)

But as those same faithful would say, the Devil never takes a day off. Outside continued to knock on the front doors of the tabernacle, begging young Archer to play, and eventually, he answered. By 2000, he was well along the path Marvin had paved before him. Bringing even more of his gifts to the secular world, Archer released Voodoo, the much-anticipated follow-up to the instant classic Brown Sugar. It was an immediate departure from what many had expected of the young crooner. If Brown Sugar is the polished imprint of an R&B savant, Voodoo is its country cousin, channeling a deliberate drawl through Pino Palladino’s languid bass play and the loose but endearingly human precision of Questlove’s behind-the-beat drumming. But while its forefather, I Want You, embraced overt sexuality with subtly religious undertones, the lines of Voodoo are much more blurred and considerably more complicated.

Take, for example, one of the album’s earliest entries, the dogmatic “Devil’s Pie.” Here, we get a preacher’s lament tightly bound in a haunting sample from Teddy Pendergrass. D’Angelo pointedly condemns the temptations of “materialis[m], greed, and lust,” delivering his word with the restrained grit of a man both warning others and wrestling with those same demons himself.

“Fuck the slice, want the pie / Why ask why ’til we fry / Watch us all stand in line / For a slice of the devil’s pie / Drugs and thugs, women, wine / Three or four at a time / Watch them all stand in line / For a slice of the devil’s pie” — D’Angelo, “Devil’s Pie”

But as the benediction draws to a close, the record pivots to the playfully vulgar ‘Left and Right.” Redman and Method Man step in as the unrepentant sinners, unleashing a litany of provocations that contradict the very sermon Reverend D had just delivered.

“Who got the biggest ass in the house? (Yeah) / Young miss, fillet-of-fish, saltwater trout / Pretty young thing, got a tongue ring and dirty mouth / And she whisperin’ them sweet nothings, I air it out (Air it out) / Baby, you got me like Joanie had Chachi / Until she got high and went and fucked Potsie (Yeah) / Lady Godiva, from day one a dick rider” — Method Man, “Left and Right”

“Come one-five-one, straight indo, the spot / I fuck brown sugar behind the fiber glass window / It’s Doc, pack guns, don’t sling weight / The only thing I sling is condoms for spring break” / (Fuck ’em) How we do it? / (Leave ’em) How we do it? (Oh, baby) / (Get the money) The pussy / (The weed) Now do it — Redman, “Left and Right”

I don’t believe this sequencing to be accidental; it reflects the push and pull between the sacred and profane that defines Voodoo. Simply juxtapose the hedonistic wants of these clever (albeit sophomoric) lyricists against the presentation of sexual desire as understood by D’Angelo:

“Here you are in my world (It’s just my world) / Make you feel like a pearl / I’ll rub your back, huh, and fulfill your needs / So why don’t we just get undressed? / Feel the tender touch of your caress/ That’s what I want / Why don’t you give it to me? (Yeah, give it to me) / I will have you believe / There’s no reason for you to leave /Stay right here (Stay right here) in my arms (In my arms, oh) /Where you’re safe and secure (Yeah) / Here with me you can be sure / There’s no threat (Yeah), say you turn me on” — D’Angelo, “Left and Right”

While matching the erotic fervor of his contemporaries, D’Angelo arrives here in a state of adoration for the female form. He is worshipping her body, centering her pleasure, first and foremost. Because she is not the masturbatory sex toy of Red and Meth’s fantasy, nor is she completely human. The woman of D’Angelo’s prose is Oshun, an ethereal being worthy of total praise and exaltation.

This tension isn’t confined exclusively to wax either. A month before releasing Voodoo, D’Angelo previewed “Send It On” during Vh1’s Men Strike Back television special. Midway through the performance, D’Angelo steps away from the microphone. Overcome with emotion, he claps his hands together before throwing them to the sky and crying out, “It’s alright… it’s alright!” The moment feels deeply devotional, reminiscent of a church soloist caught up in the Holy Spirit. But just as quickly as he finds his religion, the mood shifts. After some playful, romantic banter with the crowd, evoking visions of candlelit dinners and caviar, D’Angelo turns to Tom Jones and hurriedly belts out, “But Tom, this ain’t one of those times. Band, hit me!” With that, the aptly titled Soultronics dive headfirst into James Brown’s “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.” The transition is sharp and jarring, moving from spiritual transcendence to unfiltered, primal energy. Yet, D’Angelo and the Soultronics don’t miss a beat, propelling the performance forward with electrifying precision and power.

Throughout the album, we are confronted with these seemingly paradoxical blends of crude, but calculated musical forms and acute religious imagery, both performative and lyrically. It’s the call-and-response dynamic between D’Angelo and his own layered background vocals on “Chicken Grease.” It’s the prayerful tone and spiritual resilience of “The Line.” It’s the straight-up biblical lens through which D’Angelo experiences heartbreak on “The Root.”

“She done worked a root, mm-mm / In the name of love and war (In the name of love) took my shield and sword (And sword) / From the pit of the bottom (Bottom), that knows no floor (Oh-oh-oh) / Like the rain to the dirt (Ah), from the vine to the wine (From the vine to the wine) / From the Alpha creation (Oh), ’til the end all time / Yeah, ’til the end of all time” — D’Angelo, “The Root”

But there is no greater manifestation of everything that both D’Angelo and Michael Eugene Archer possess than “(Untitled) How Does It Feel.” This is the thesis of his struggle, the pressure through which the diamond was produced. Conceived as a tribute to Prince, the balladeer, it could just as easily serve as a meditation on the Purple One’s own conflict between secular desire and spiritual devotion. In the now-iconic music video, D’Angelo appears adorned with nothing but a gold crucifix. His nude form is not just sensual but reverent, transforming the song’s carnal lyricism, steeped in the legacy of Prince and Marvin Gaye, into something akin to worship. As the music swells, D’Angelo bows his head, sitting back in heavy contemplation. The band and background vocals begin their ascent, rushing like blood to the surface. D’Angelo leans back, his hands now behind his head, that knowing, gap-toothed smile flickering across his face. Then, unable to resist the pull of the moment, he reenters the song, softly at first, he murmurs, “Yeah.” His voice grows, climbing with the band until it erupts into a bellowing cry — a climax. That final cry, with his face thrown back and flushed, embodies both the ecstasy of the flesh and the complete submission to faith. It’s a face I recognize: one I’ve seen on Sundays, etched into the elders’ expressions when they lose themselves in worship. It’s the moment when nothing is held back, when the body and spirit are overcome, and all that remains is sweet release — a surrender to the Holy Ghost.

That music video was the beginning and end of this era of D’Angelo. Michael Eugene Archer saw a devastatingly quick fall from grace courtesy of a hypersexualized image that overshadowed his artistry. No longer could he provide his gifts righteously to the stage or his congregation; instead, he was met with predatory voices demanding that he take off his clothes, money haphazardly thrown about at his overly objectified form. Speaking with GQ about his on-set conversation with the video’s director, Paul Hunter, D’Angelo said, “We talked about the Holy Ghost and the church before that take. The veil is the nudity and the sexuality. But what they’re really getting is the spirit.” But the world wanted him to play, not to praise. The experience became tainted. And with no escape, he consumed the ingredients that made up “Devil’s Pie.”

Voodoo is more than an album; it’s a spiritual artifact — a remarkable journey through the mind of a man struggling with his inside spirit in an outside world. Without that struggle, this music couldn’t exist. By definition, voodoo (or Hoodoo) is a spiritual tradition rooted in West African religions, blending rituals, ancestral worship, and belief in divine spirits, all intertwined with elements of Christianity. Of the album’s title, D’Angelo explained, “[T]he myriad influences found on it can be traced through the blues and back deeper in history through songs sung — in religious [voodoo] ceremonies.” As practiced by the ancestors, voodoo was a religion that connected the earthly and the spiritual, where there was no “one foot in and one foot out.” This duality — body and spirit, faith and desire — mirrored the broader tension of Black identity. For D’Angelo, this duality wasn’t just thematic; it was personal.

Twenty-five years later, Voodoo still resonates because it tells a story we all know: the struggle to reconcile who we are with who we want to be. It is history and religion, our connection to this plane and that of our ancestors. It is us in our rawest form, sacred and secular at once. That’s Voodoo.