D’Angelo, the Grammy-winning R&B artist who helped pioneer the neo-soul movement across decades, has died. He was 51 years old.
D'Angelo's family broke the news to the public and also revealed his cause of death. He had been privately battling pancreatic cancer.
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“The shining star of our family has dimmed his light for us in this life," his family wrote in their official statement. "After a prolonged and courageous battle with cancer, we are heartbroken to announce that Michael D’Angelo Archer, known to his fans around the world as D’Angelo, has been called home, departing this life today, October 14th, 2025. We are saddened that he can only leave dear memories with his family, but we are eternally grateful for the legacy of extraordinarily moving music he leaves behind. We ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time but invite you all join us in mourning his passing while also celebrating the gift of song that he has left for the world.”
D'Angelo will be remembered for helping to popularize neo-soul: a genre of modern R&B and soul flavored with hip hop, funk, rock and other influences. Artists such as Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, Q-Tip and Erykah Badu have also helped define the genre.
Born in Virginia, D'Angelo came of age in the 1990s. When he was 21, he dropped his debut album Brown Sugar. The song "Lady" topped out at #10 in March of 1996 and spent 20 weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.
He reached a wider audience with the 2000 release of his second album, Voodoo. That record debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and would go on to win Best R&B Album at the Grammys. The instrumentation was recorded live with very few overdubs, using vintage equipment to add to the warmth of D’angelo's idiosyncratic vocals. The LP's moving lead single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)," won the Grammy for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance. The video for the track, which featured a bare-chested D'Angelo filmed in a single take as he lip-synced the song, received heavy rotation on MTV and BET.
After a period of personal strain - including struggles with alcoholism - D’Angelo resurfaced in 2014 with the surprise release of his third and final album, Black Messiah. It had originally been due out the following year, but D’Angelo brought forward the release in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. The album received critical acclaim, and “Really Love” went out as a radio single. The tune earned D’Angelo two of his three nominations at the 2016 Grammy Awards. He won one of them - for Best R&B Song - and another, Best R&B Album, for Black Messiah, bringing his lifetime Grammys tally to four.
D'Angelo was also known for his reclusive nature. In his quiet period, he had taught himself guitar, and he played alongside an elite band - including drummer Questlove, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, and horn player Roy Hargrove. They were credited as the Vanguard.
“This is a very powerful medium that we are involved in,” D’Angelo told GQ in 2014. “I learned at an early age that what we were doing in the choir was just as important as the preacher. It was a ministry in itself. We could stir the pot, you know? The stage is our pulpit, and you can use all of that energy and that music and the lights and the colors and the sound. But you know, you’ve got to be careful.”
Although Black Messiah was the last album in his lifetime, D’Angelo continued performing and recording. Some final projects he worked on included a song for the Red Dead Redemption 2 video game (he was reportedly a “massive, massive, massive fan” of Red Dead Redemption 2, going so far as to contact Rockstar Games and visit their NYC office to play the game) and collaborations with Rapsody and Jay-Z. He also led a VERZUZ battle from the Apollo Theater against a lineup of friends. In a Billboard interview last year, Raphael Saadiq said his sometime collaborator had been working on six songs for a new album.
Coincidentally, D’Angelo’s passing comes the same year as the death of his former girlfriend, Angie Stone: a Grammy-nominated R&B singer who was killed in a car crash near Montgomery, Alabama, in March. The pair had a child together, Michael D’Angelo Archer II. He's now a 27-year-old musical artist who goes by Swayvo Twain.
D'Angelo's label, RCA, mourned his death. "He was a peerless visionary who effortlessly blended the classic sounds of soul, funk, gospel, R&B, and jazz with a hip hop sensibility," the company said in a statement to NBC News on Tuesday. "D’Angelo’s songwriting, musicianship, and unmistakable vocal styling has endured and will continue to inspire generations of artists to come. Our hearts are with his family and friends during this difficult time."
An outpouring of other heartfelt tributes have come from the likes of Missy Elliott, Nile Rodgers, DJ Premier, Bootsy Collins, Tyler, the Creator, Jill Scott, Erick Sermon, Aminé, Cadence Weapon, KeiyaA, and Bartees Strange. Besides his son Michael, D'Angelo is survived by his other son, Morocco, and his daughter, Imani.
Listen to more classic D'Angelo songs below.
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Article Image: Close-up of D'Angelo playing a show in 2012. (Roquai [CC by 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons.)
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