Michael Eugene Archer, better known as D’Angelo, has reportedly passed away at age 51 after a private battle with pancreatic cancer. His death was first reported by journalist Marc Lamont Hill on Twitter, and later confirmed by TMZ.
D’Angelo was best recognized as one of the pioneers of the so-called “neo-soul” movement in contemporary R&B in the 1990s and 2000s, breaking out with his debut album Brown Sugar in 1995. That album’s singles, “Brown Sugar,” “Cruisin’,” and “Lady,” were credited with driving the nasent sub-genre’s popularity along with releases from Erykah Badu in the same year.
In 2000, D’Angelo followed up with Voodoo, which debuted at No.1 on the US Billboard 200 and garnered the Virginia native the Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for the single, “Untitled (How Does It Feel).” However, the attention he received from the risqué video for that song prompted his discomfort with being considered a sex symbol; he subsequently shied away from the public eye, taking 14 years to release another album.
That album, Black Messiah, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and earned D’Angelo another Best R&B Album at the 58th Grammy Awards in 2015. In the interim, D’Angelo produced and wrote for other artists as a member of the lauded Soulquarians collective with Questlove, J Dilla, Roy Hargrove, Erykah Badu, James Poyser, Bilal, Q-Tip, and Mos Def (Yasiin Bey). As a group, they produced many of the standout hip-hop and soul projects of the 2000s, including The Roots’ Things Fall Apart, Badu’s Mama’s Gun, and Common’s Like Water for Chocolate. In September 2024, Raphael Saadiq told Billboard that he believed D’Angelo was working on a new album.
