Cannonball with Wesley Morris
Episode: D’Angelo and the Power of Last Albums
Date: December 4, 2025
Host: Wesley Morris
Guest: Alex Papademas, Senior Culture Editor at GQ
Episode Overview
This episode probes the idea and cultural significance of “the last album,” using the occasion of D’Angelo’s recent death to explore questions about artistic finality, legacy, and what it means to leave behind a body of work. Wesley Morris and guest Alex Papademas (former Grantland colleague) dive into what last albums are, why they hold power, and how they’re shaped by circumstance—be it looming mortality or unexpected tragedy. Illustrative case studies—from Warren Zevon to Notorious B.I.G. and Aaliyah—frame the conversation, leading to a reflection on D’Angelo’s “Black Messiah” as both a “last” and a “comeback” album.
Key Themes and Discussion Points
Defining "Last Albums"
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What is a Last Album?
- The hosts clarify that “last albums” are those completed and released while the artist was still alive (and primarily creatively responsible)—not posthumous compilations or AI-generated works.
- (04:58) Alex: “...the person has to have been alive and sort of the primary creative force behind the making of this album... It is not pieced together from what they would have done if they had been here.”
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Two Types of Last Albums:
- Albums made by artists who know the end is near or suspect it (“death-aware”).
- Albums by artists who die unexpectedly (“premonition” or accidental last albums).
The Power and Weight of Finality
- Contextualizing Legacy:
- Writing about an artist posthumously closes “the envelope of possibility,” allowing listeners and critics to see the full arc of artistic output.
- (08:32) Alex: “When someone’s dead, you can actually sort of look honestly... the entire artistic output... The envelope of possibility is closed. ...I enjoyed writing about them after they had died because I felt like it sort of contextualized everything... you know where the book ends.”
Case Studies of Last Albums
Warren Zevon – The Wind (2003)
Type: Death-aware, made with diagnosis of terminal illness
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Zevon’s career: Cult L.A. singer-songwriter, known for dark wit and tracks like “Werewolves of London.”
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Final years: Knew he was dying of mesothelioma after My Ride’s Here (11:45).
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The Wind: Friends and luminaries crowd in to support; lyrics and performances stripped of humor, directly confront mortality.
- (14:17) Alex: “He’s really kind of facing up to what this reality is... what have I wasted? What have I done with my time?”
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Particularly moving tracks:
- “Keep Me in Your Heart” described as perhaps “the greatest last song on a last album.”
- (17:38) Alex: “...it’ll stop you... It’s him asking... Just think about old Warren for a little while after I’m gone... He wants to exist in some very small way in someone’s life.”
- (18:09) “What’s a vocal, right? It’s breath. It’s literally like you are listening to, like, the last exhalations that these people will make on the planet. And it’s... chilling.”
- “Keep Me in Your Heart” described as perhaps “the greatest last song on a last album.”
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Notable Quotes:
- (19:21) “Hold me in your thoughts / Take me to your dreams / Touch me as I’m flying / Fall into view. ...When the winter comes / keep the fires lit and I will be right next to you.” – Zevon, via Alex
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Meaning of such albums:
- The meaning is explicit: “You know what you’re listening to as you’re listening to it. It’s not a secret.” (19:43, Wesley)
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Other death-aware last albums noted:
- David Bowie (Blackstar), Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash
The "Premonition" Last Album — Notorious B.I.G. – Life After Death (1997)
Type: Premonition/Accidental—competed while alive, released after sudden death
- Biggie’s second album finished before his assassination, with haunting preoccupations around mortality and violence.
- (20:45) Wesley: “...one of the great examples of this is Notorious B.I.G's Life After Death... the album was done before he left this earth.”
- Ready to Die: Masterpiece, ends with the sound of self-destruction
- (22:42) “Ready to Die ends with him shooting himself… within this success is the possibility of doom.”
- Life After Death: Tension between living with the possibility of dying and creative hope
- Disc 1: “I’m probably gonna die after these songs...”
- Disc 2: “Wait, I’m still here. I still get to make more music.”
- (26:08) "Disc two is where the adventure really begins... this person [is] like, wait, I just get to keep doing this? ...What can I do?"
- Sky’s the Limit and Another: Simultaneous celebration and tragedy; a sense of possibility cruelly cut short.
- (28:30) “This is a person who... was really ready to, like, go to Bangerville.”
The Tragedy of the Cut-Short Last Album — Aaliyah – Aaliyah (2001)
Type: Purely accidental; death not anticipated
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(31:33) Wesley: “I wanted to ...think a little bit more, almost purely about the last album by a person who did not in any way expect it to be their last album... Aaliyah's self-titled third and final album from 2001.”
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(33:07) Alex: “These songs are not about death. You’re not thinking about death when you’re listening to Rock the Boat.”
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Aaliyah marks her artistic coming-of-age, finally self-determining, sensuous and powerful, moving beyond controlling figures in her life and career.
- (33:22) Alex: “She was someone who was always very much, you know, like ...the tragedy of Aaliyah is the degree to which she was ...under the thumb of various producers and ...this one is where she's beginning to come into her own.”
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(35:34) Wesley: “We should just sit in what Possibility sounded like. ...every time I see [‘More Than a Woman’], I’m like, oh, there’s also the Bee Gees ‘More than a Woman…’”
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Why it hurts: With Biggie and Aaliyah, it’s not just a goodbye but mourning lost future discographies.
- (34:36) Alex: “What we are mourning is possibility ...the discography that we were robbed of... we didn’t get enough.”
- (36:11) Wesley: “It has the possibility of being starter for a whole universe of music that happens in its wake.”
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Aaliyah’s legacy radiates through the next generation (Ciara, FKA Twigs, Rihanna, etc.), despite her career’s brevity.
D’Angelo – Black Messiah (2014)
Type: Unanticipated, but existential awareness present
- The heart of the episode is a meditation on D’Angelo’s third and final album, released 14 years after “Voodoo.”
- (01:58) Wesley: “...the album that I keep coming back to is the last one... Black Messiah. It’s a turning point album. The man singing it no longer wants to sound only sexy. He sounds contemplative, in pain, unsure… thinking about what it means to be a man ...and a spiritual descendant of the black power movement.”
- (03:07) “It sounds as if existential questions are being posed and emotional quandaries are being, if not resolved, then at least confronted. The music is thick and charged, but also celestial and at times cosmic.”
- (38:58) 14 years between “Voodoo” and “Black Messiah” — a mythic return.
- Album long in the making, post-addiction, post-car accident; D’Angelo arguably finding both closure and fresh purpose, though not writing his own ending.
- (39:31) Alex: “So it’s both a last album and a comeback album, because they’re basically—Everything is a comeback album for him.”
- (41:16) Alex: “...he has some of the sort of the certainty that you see in people who kind of knew they were going to be martyred. And...that feeling of I know that... when it’s my time, I will have done the thing I was meant to do... exactly where God wanted me.”
The Last Album as Guide, Legacy, and Index of Life
- (43:35) Wesley: “The fact of it corresponds with questions that we as human beings have about what it means to be here. And these albums, in some way, are a guide, like an index of having lived.”
- (44:58) Alex: “I don’t know, just a certain kind of person, a certain kind of artist has that thing... maybe that is why they are motivated to leave a mark while they can ...it gets to the essence of art... like, I existed.”
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- (08:32) Alex: “When someone’s dead, you can actually sort of look honestly...the entire artistic output...The envelope of possibility is closed.”
- (14:17) Alex on Zevon: “...he’s really kind of facing up to what this reality is and the idea of not being here...what have I wasted? What have I done with my time?”
- (17:38) Alex: "'Keep Me in Your Heart'...It’ll stop you...He wants to exist still in some very small way in someone’s life."
- (26:08) Wesley: "Disc two is where the adventure really begins...this person be like, wait, I just get to keep doing this?"
- (34:36) Alex on Aaliyah: “What we are mourning is possibility ...the discography that we were robbed of...we didn’t get enough.”
- (41:16) Alex: “That feeling of I have done ...when it’s my time, I will have done the thing that I was meant to do. ...I was exactly where God wanted me.”
- (43:35) Wesley: “...these albums, in some way, are a guide, like an index of having lived.”
- (44:58) Alex: "It gets to the essence of art, which is like, you know... I'm going to put my handprint on the wall so that you'll know that, like, I existed."
Timestamps for Key Segments
- 00:39 – Introduction; D’Angelo’s three albums
- 04:34 – Alex Papademas joins; defining “last albums”
- 07:46 – On the emotional/critical resonance of final albums
- 09:28 – Warren Zevon’s The Wind, “death-aware” last albums
- 20:44 – The “premonition” album: Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death
- 31:33 – Albums unintentionally “last”: Aaliyah’s Aaliyah
- 38:28 – D’Angelo’s Black Messiah — comeback and unintentional finality
- 43:35 – Last albums as testimony and index of having lived
- 45:53 – Closing thoughts
Final Thoughts
Wesley Morris and Alex Papademas illuminate how last albums—whether consciously made as a farewell or tragically so by circumstance—are more than the sum of their parts. They are moments where time, mortality, and creativity intersect, often becoming profound guides for listeners grappling with their own humanity. D’Angelo’s “Black Messiah” emerges as a case in point: a masterwork dense with existential reckoning, future possibility, and mortal acceptance, offering listeners both a sense of closure and new questions about what it means to leave something everlasting.
Listen if you enjoy: music criticism, questions of legacy, cultural grief, and the deeply personal impact of art made at the edge of mortality.