"Brown Sugar" debuted at number six on the US "Billboard" Top R&B Albums chart, selling 300,000 copies in its first two months. With the help of its four singles, it spent 65 weeks on the "Billboard" 200 chart and attained platinum shipments within a year of its release. Upon its release, "Brown Sugar" received acclaim from music critics and earned D'Angelo several accolades, including four Grammy Award nominations. Regarded by music writers as a pivotal album in neo soul, the album provided commercial visibility to the musical movement, amid the prominence of producer-driven, digitally approached R&B.