In the day of D’Angelo’s passing, we revisit the unexpectedly delightful story of his one and only collaboration in the world of video games.
We told the story of D’Angelo’s unlikely career. After recreating a musical genre for the 1990s, he would experience multiple career and personal setbacks. But this placed him in the unlikely position of making three solo albums for three different decades.
After his last solo album, Black Messiah, D’Angelo shocked everyone by showing up as performer for Red Dead Redemption 2’s signature track; Unshaken.
But the story of how he got there was one for the ages.
D’Angelo’s First Work For Rockstar Games – Was As A Game Tester?
As Rolling Stone found out, Rockstar was not the one who reached out to D’Angelo first. D’Angelo was actually the person who connected with Rockstar.
Specifically, he connected with Rockstar Games’ music and audio director Ivan Pavlovich. Pavlovich told the story like this:
He would come in here [Rockstar’s New York city office] and just play the game. We weren’t even talking about doing music.
When D’Angelo comes through, he shows up at midnight, and he’s playing the game until four in the morning.
Each time he was just like, ‘it’s incredible.’ It just blows his mind. He’s such a fan. I have never seen someone that excited.”
And we want you to think about how this looks like from D’Angelo’s point of view. Even if you aren’t a multiplatinum and Grammy awarded artist, you can totally see where he’s coming from.
D’Angelo may have used his connections in ways that most of us could never imagine. But he pulled those strings to play Red Dead Redemption 2 before everyone else. And we all know we would do the same thing if we could.
How D’Angelo Actually Got Hired To Sing For The Game
Pavlovich approached D’Angelo about making a song and he agreed. But Rockstar was (reasonably) worried that they might not make it to the game’s launch.
So Rockstar hired another industry titan, veteran producer Daniel Lanois. In one and a half weeks, Lanois and D’Angelo brought their inspirations together to come up with the song, Unshaken.
About Unshaken
As explained in Genius, Unshaken comes in at the point in Red Dead Redemption 2 where Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang are at their lowest point.
Arthur ponders how he could see his way of life about to disappear as the Old West was set to change. He also thinks about his own personal losses.
The song makes the proverbial call for Arthur to stay strong, a powerful picture of both masculine fragility and inner strength.
Lanois says that the key lyrics “May I stand unshaken, amidst the crash of worlds” came from a Hindu proverb his co-writer had on his phone. It originally came from Indian-American guru Sri Paramahansa Yogananda.
One could see how those words apply to the fictional life of Arthur Morgan. And even more so, the real life rise and fall and rise once again of D’Angelo. And that’s something the rest of us can also think about as it applies to our own lives, too.
