( Rolling Stone ) -- Questlove remembers the moment he called D'Angelo and asked him to make his first U.S. concert appearance in 12 years on June 9th , for the drummer 's late-night Super Jam at Bonnaroo . `` I said , 'It will be a whole night doing what we used to do at Electric Lady in the Nineties , ' '' Questlove tells Rolling Stone . `` 'Playing the Funkadelic catalog and seeing what we get , the Prince catalog , Hendrix , the Meters . ' He said , 'Go ahead . ' And once he said , 'Go ahead , ' I was like , ' I got you now . ' '' During the live jam session , D'Angelo surprised the crowd by grooving with Funkadelic singer Kendra Foster during a funky cover of the Beatles ' `` She Came in Through the Bathroom Window '' and shredding guitar on Jimi Hendrix 's `` Power of Soul . '' `` He 's elated , '' Questlove says . `` He was just amazed . I wanted him to see how loved he really is because he really does n't get it . He seriously does n't watch television . He 's not on a computer at all . He 's still listening to vinyl , cassettes and a Discman . '' The Roots drummer hopes the appearance will convince D'Angelo to finally release his first LP since 2000 's `` Voodoo . '' Questlove says roughly 30 tracks have been recorded over the last few years , with many sessions taking place at Electric Lady in New York , where the singer cut Voodoo . `` He is about to take a radical 180 turn with this record , '' says Questlove . `` It 's going to throw people off the same way that Prince 's Dirty Mind threw his R & B fanbase off . In the past few years , he 's discovered Bowie and Zeppelin , the Beatles , Pet Sounds , Captain Beefheart and Zappa . `` My whole reasoning for doing [ Bonnaroo ] , '' Questlove says , `` was to show him who his real audience is . '' On the upcoming album , fans will also hear a new side of the singer : as a guitarist . `` I saw a guitar in the studio , and I was like , 'What the hell 's this ? ' '' Questlove remembers . `` One night , when he did n't know I was watching , he took a dinner break from recording . Suddenly , I heard [ Funkadelic 's ] 'Maggot Brain ' playing . I realized he was in the studio room matching it note-for-note . For the last 12 years , he 's been strumming the guitar ... He is so painfully shy about it . I think in his head , if he does n't surpass Eddie Hazel , Santana , James Blood Ulmer and Frank Zappa as an axeman , he does n't want to share it with the world . '' D'Angelo has also been creating his own keyboard sounds for the album . `` He 's very particular about his patches , '' Questlove adds . `` I 've never heard these sounds before . He 'll take an ordinary sound and he 'll filter it through a guitar processor . He 'll take that particular sound and put some wave envelope noise on it , and he 'll put it back in the keyboard , and that 's his sound . There 's a song we worked on called 'The Charade . ' There 's this symphonic trombone sound , which normally would be a cheesy sound Swizz Beatz uses . But he 'll take that sound and then put it through a guitar filter and put it back in the keyboard and then put it through another filter . It 's totally unique . '' Fans should expect to hear some of the new songs during an appearance at New Orleans Essence Festival on July 6th . Questlove says the goal is to release the LP around August . `` Nothing is official -- - it is year 12 , '' he laughs . `` I 'm just hoping that this was enough fire to really make him do that . Because we spoke the day after [ Bonnaroo ] and he said , ' I 'm so happy . ' I said , 'Now you just turn in your damn record . Just finish . Just turn it in . Let your children go already . '' See the full story at RollingStone.com . Copyright © 2011 Rolling Stone .
The Roots drummer Questlove said D'Angelo will take a 'radical roughly 30 turn ' with his next record . D'Angelo made his first Pet Sounds concert appearance in Questlove on at Bonnaroo on 12 years . Questlove hopes the appearance will convince D'Angelo to release his LP .