On Oct. 14, shock ran through the music world when it was announced neo-soul pioneer D’Angelo died at 51. The singer died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, which had left him hospitalized for months. Fans flocked to social media to send condolences to his family and grieve the death of a trailblazer whose legacy will forever be cemented within music.
Michael Eugene Archer, known by the world as D’Angelo, was born in Richmond, Virginia, on Feb. 11, 1974. Within his household, he learned to play piano by ear at three years old.
Being the son of a Pentecostal minister, he transferred those talents over to his father’s church and then his grandfather’s church. His church upbringing meant that no secular music was allowed in the house, so when his older brother began sneaking in Prince albums, an entirely new world opened up to him. When he learned that Prince played all the instruments on his albums, it gave him a new sense of musicianship.
In the following years, he formed a trio with two cousins called Three of a Kind and won local talent competitions. Then he formed his group Precise, which performed at Amateur Night at The Apollo and won three times. This prompted him to drop out of school to pursue his music career. He was a part of a local group called I.D.U., but left after scoring a solo deal with EMI.
D’Angelo’s debut album “Brown Sugar” was the catalyst in crafting the classic neo-soul sound. The sound of R&B at the time had lost the raw soul it once had. “Brown Sugar” resurrected but also reworked the soulfulness of R&B. Unlike many of the producer-heavy R&B projects of the time, “Brown Sugar” was majorly produced and written by D’Angelo.
Street-wise lyrics paired with smooth vocals, jazzy instrumentals and raw emotion became the blueprint for neo-soul sound. The album has clear influences from Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway.
This album, along with Erykah Badu’s “Baduizm” and Maxwell’s “Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite,” is credited with carving out the neo-soul sound and giving it a space in mainstream music. It achieved platinum certification in its first year.
His next album came five years later in the form of “Voodoo.” The five years between albums was a result of intense writer's block that plagued the singer. “Voodoo” was recorded inside Electric Lady Studios, a studio commissioned by legend Jimi Hendrix and utilized by other legends like Stevie Wonder.
Here, the Soulquaarians, a collective of Black music artists trying to facilitate a new sound for themselves, traded, collaborated and created music. D’Angelo’s “Voodoo," Erykah Badu’s “Mama’s Gun” and Common’s “Like Water for Chocolate” overlapped each other in the recording process and all have a distinctive sound attributed to the constant collaboration between these artists. During this time, he and fellow neo-soul singer Angie Stone had a son, which also served as fuel to create “Voodoo.”
“Voodoo” debuted at #1 on Billboard, but before the album was released, “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” became a hit single. This single, along with the music video, launched D’Angelo into the stratosphere, for better or for worse.
D’Angelo, introverted and reserved, was reluctant to shoot the video. He appeared nude from the waist up while he sang “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” an intimate and sultry ballad, into the camera.
The video’s reception caused droves of women to come to the “Voodoo” tour, objectifying and sexualizing him. This ruined D’Angelo’s mental health. Other events caused D’Angelo to develop an alcohol addiction. This addiction led to several other struggles. Following this, he checked into rehab and disappeared for a while, occasionally doing features.
D’Angelo returned to music in 2014 with his third and last studio album, “Black Messiah.” After years of working on himself and music, D’Angelo felt ready to return to music. “Black Messiah” was supposed to be released in 2015, but the death of Michael Brown and the subsequent protests convinced him to drop the album earlier. The return of D’Angelo was met with critical acclaim and the album debuted fifth on the U.S. Billboard charts.
D’Angelo won a total of four Grammys during his time as an artist, has two RIAA-certified platinum albums and has achieved a host of other accolades. These, though, don’t define D’Angelo. In his own words, “I do Black music. I make Black music.”
He stood on the shoulders of Black musical geniuses and pioneers, cultivated sounds that were unapologetically Black and celebrated the expansiveness of Black music and art.
