working today who are "purer" artists than D'Angelo... even using your definition (which I find problematic to begin with)

There are loads of African-American independent R&B and soul musicians, rock musicians... there are musicians without record deals who play live every night... there are folk musicians...

But D'Angelo--a guy who has barely played music at all in over a decade--is the only pure African American artist?

LOL I swear... some people will swallow anything, as long as someone "hip" and "famous" says it. Which, like I said, is part of the problem. People don't even care about "pure" art... they care about following "hip" celebrities.