Donnie Is Underrated!
From 2002's homage to What's Going On and Talking Book era Stevie Wonder The Colored Section :
The Coloured Section (My inner Canuck will not allow me to miss out the U) (2002)
to 2007's biting commentary on R@cism, homophobia, misogyny and the war on drugs The Daily News :
Donnie is not even mentioned in conversations about 2000's neo-soul, let alone the genre as a whole, despite delivering some of the most acclaimed albums of his era and exploring subject matter in R&B that had not been broached for decades and sometimes even subject matter that did not become the zeitgeist until recently. Records like "Cloud 9" and "If I Were You" are some of the most poignant of the 2000s and this is to say nothing of him being a gay man in a time when the bravado amongst Men in R&B was turned up to the Nth degree. Donnie may have walked so that Durand Bernarr and serpentwithfeet could run.
How do you feel about Donnie's place in the neo-soul pantheon?