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D’Angelo & The Vanguard Wears ‘Black Lives Matter’ Shirts During ‘SNL’ Performance

Written by on February 1, 2015

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The call for justice for the recent killings of the high profile cases of 2 black Americans came face front on stage last night’s episode Saturday Night Live. Neo-Soul singer D’Angelo -his first live TV appearance since releasing his surprise album “Black Messiah” in December 2014 , addressed the matter head-on.

 D’Angelo and his band, The Vanguard, started things  with the slow cut “Really Love” from “Black Messiah.” Then on their second song, “Charade,”D’Angelo acknowledged the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two unarmed black men who were killed by police officers last year, spawning the #BlackLivesMatter protests.

There were recent grand jury decisions to not indict the officers in either case.

The band wore “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts, the latter in reference to Garner’s last words, while D’Angelo wore a hooded sweatshirt for half of his performance in what seemed to be a tribute to Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teen who was killed in Florida by a neighborhood watch volunteer in 2012.

A chalk outline also covered the stage in a possible ode to Brown.

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Watch the full performance of “Charade”  and of “Really Love” below.