D’Angelo and Bobby Seale on the Past and Future of Political Protest

OAKLAND, CALIF. — In early June, before the shootings in Charleston, S.C., the R&B singer D’Angelo stood beneath the blood-red awning of the It’s All Good Bakery here, peering into the window of the building that served as the first office for the Black Panther Party. At another stop, beneath a street lamp on Seventh Avenue, he stood where the group carried out its first observation of law enforcement.

In the wake of recent killings of unarmed African-American men, D’Angelo has grown increasingly frustrated with racial injustice and has been looking at the political movements of the past for ideas for change. “There’s got to be a way, right?” he asked his tour guide, Bobby Seale.

“It has to go beyond just sitting and arguing and debating,” replied Mr. Seale, who formed the Black Panthers with Huey P. Newton in 1966. Throughout the evening, Mr. Seale stressed the importance of getting more African-Americans elected to office. “Political seats — you make the laws, you change the laws,” he said.

D’Angelo, 41, and Mr. Seale, 78, had met for the first time just a few hours earlier, but the survey of sites significant to the Black Panthers in Oakland and in Berkeley had been in the works for weeks, at the suggestion of D’Angelo, who first became interested in the militant groups as a teenager in Richmond, Va. (A reporter was invited to come along.)

For more than a decade, D’Angelo stayed out of the public eye, overwhelmed by the attention that came with his acclaimed 2000 album “Voodoo.” But he has long been concerned with issues of racial inequality and police brutality, he said, and after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last year, he felt compelled to speak out. In December, he surprised fans by suddenly releasing the album “Black Messiah,” named after a term J. Edgar Hoover used to describe any charismatic black leader who could galvanize a movement. The album is searching and biting in its social commentary. On “The Charade,” D’Angelo sings, “All we wanted was a chance to talk/’Stead we only got outlined in chalk.” (D’Angelo and the Vanguard will perform at the Forest Hills Stadium on Sunday).

Mr. Seale has been an activist for half a century. He served as a spokesman for the Panthers in the late 1960s and ended his relationship with the group in 1974, after renouncing violence. As part of the Chicago Eight, he and other protesters were charged with conspiracy and inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Mr. Seale’s trial was severed from the proceedings, and he was imprisoned for contempt from 1969 to 1972.

Dressed in a black suede jacket and matching fedora, D’Angelo came across as an eager, patient student who’d done his research as he and Mr. Seale, in khakis and an undone tie, drove around in a borrowed 1964 Ford Falcon convertible. Over dinner later that night, they continued a passionate discussion about political action and the role of musicians in inspiring social change. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q. D’Angelo, you seem almost giddy in the presence of Mr. Seale.

A. D’ANGELO This is a dream. It’s very rare you get to meet one of your heroes. It’s like that guy, Phoenix Jones, in Seattle who dresses up like a superhero. This is real life. Bobby didn’t dress up.

SEALE Thank you, brother.

With “Black Messiah,” you exhibited a political side not previously seen in your music.

D’ANGELO I’ve always kind of tried to