Busta Rhymes honored D’Angelo with a heartfelt tribute observe, “Magic,” over the “One Mo’Gin” beat, reflecting on their decades-long friendship.

Busta Rhymes delivered an emotional homage to D’Angelo with a brand new observe titled “Magic,” launched via Okayplayer, honoring the late neo-soul luminary who died earlier this month after a non-public combat with most cancers.

The seven-minute tribute finds Busta Rhymes pouring his coronary heart out over the haunting instrumental of “One Mo’Gin,” a standout from D’Angelo’s revered 2000 album Voodoo.

The track opens with Busta’s reverent phrases: “D’Angelo — that man is a godsend. He is truly a godsend. Not was truly, but is truly a godsend.”

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The observe, extra eulogy than freestyle, walks listeners via their 34-year friendship, starting with their first encounter within the studio with A Tribe Called Quest.

Busta paints D’Angelo as a once-in-a-generation artist: “The man never needed a co-sign, he never needed a voucher/He touched them keys like Escobar in the Medellín/And he touched the souls of the people and everything between/We gotta feel it/And embrace all of his spirit/From the music, whenever we hear it.”

Busta Rhymes Brands D’Angelo “One Of The Most Significant Contributors To This Culture”

Released through the platform co-founded by Questlove, a longtime collaborator of D’Angelo, “Magic” serves as each a private farewell and a cultural salute.

Speaking to Okayplayer, Busta stated, “That was my friend for 34 years. Acknowledging him as a friend first, as a genius second, and as one of the most significant contributors to this culture.”

He went on to mirror on D’Angelo’s legacy, saying, “I feel like the Earth shifted when D came to do music. He was the embodiment of some s### that was a complete balance of what our ancestors created, to where he took it. There have been a lot of soulful artists who played and sang that came before him and came after him. But the impact was nowhere near the level that he was able to do it on just three albums across 34 years.”

D’Angelo, born Michael Eugene Archer, died at 51. His demise got here as a shock to many, as he had saved his most cancers prognosis out of the general public eye.

Known for his genre-defining work in neo-soul, he leaves behind a compact however highly effective discography: Brown Sugar (1995), Voodoo (2000), and Black Messiah (2014).

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