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D’Angelo achieved commercial and critical success experimenting with a fusion of jazz, funk, soul, R&B and hip-hop.
(Photo: Courtesy of Tidal)D’Angelo, a Grammy-winning R&B and neo-soul singer, guitarist and pianist who exerted a profound influence on 21st century jazz, died Oct. 14 in New York City. He was 51.
His death was announced in a statement from his family. Cause of death was pancreatic cancer, which D’Angelo had quietly been battling for several months.
The son of a jazz-loving mother and a member of the Black progressive musical collective Soulquarians, D’Angelo experimented with a fusion of jazz with funk, soul, R&B and hip-hop. His 2000 album Voodoo (and its accompanying world tour) was a milestone in that fusion, featuring contributions from jazz musicians Roy Hargrove, Charlie Hunter and Pino Palladino.
Voodoo, in turn, became an influential recording for young jazz musicians who regarded its use of rhythms, soul and funk musical components and samples as a bedrock for contemporary jazz. Musicians such as Robert Glasper, Bilal and Karriem Riggins cited D’Angelo and Voodoo as important in their own development. Hargrove, in particular, cited it as an inspiration for his RH Factor ensemble (on whose first album, 2003’s Hard Groove, D’Angelo made a cameo appearance).
He also collaborated with jazz and jazz-adjacent musicians including Frank Lacy, Russell Gunn, Keyon Harrold and Jacques Schwartz-Bart, among others.
Michael Eugene Archer was born Feb. 11, 1974 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Luther Archer Sr. and the former Mariann Smith, both Pentecostal ministers. Archer was drawn from his youth to the house piano; encouraged by his parents, he was soon playing piano in the church. However, his mother was also a lover of jazz, soul and R&B, and as she showed the music to her son, he became more and more thoroughly immersed in music.
He formed his first band, Michael Archer and Precise, at age 16. A year later, the band won three straight Amateur Night competitions at the Apollo Theater in New York. Emboldened by the victories, Archer dropped out of high school at 18 and moved to New York to pursue a musical career. He signed with EMI in 1993, and a year later had his first commercial success as the co-producer of the Black Men United single “U Will Know.”
Archer’s first album as D’Angelo, Brown Sugar (1995), was a Platinum-selling album, and its single “Lady” a top 10 hit. The album became known as one of the most significant in the burgeoning genre of neo-soul: a revival of the soul music genre that incorporated jazz, funk and hip-hop.
His next album, Voodoo, was delayed significantly by writer’s block and crises of confidence, the latter which only worsened with the album’s runaway critical and commercial success. This led to personal problems including alcohol and drug addiction, as well as a debilitating 2005 car accident, all of which led to even longer delays for this third album, Black Messiah. Ultimately released in 2014, the album once again received critical and commercial success.
According to reports from his longtime friend and collaborator, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Raphael Saadiq, D’Angelo had been working on a fourth album at the time of his death. It will now be completed and released posthumously.
D’Angelo is survived by his two sons, Michael and Morocco Archer, and his daughter, Imani Archer. DB
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