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D’Angelo, Grammy Award-winning R&B singer, dead at 51

The influential singer debuted his album "Brown Sugar" in 1995 and rose to wider fame with the release of "Voodoo."

D'Angelo performs at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee in 2012. (Gary Miller/WireImage/Getty Images)
D'Angelo performs at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee in 2012. (Gary Miller/WireImage/Getty Images)

 

By sdsd 

D’Angelo, the visionary singer and musician who blended R&B and soul in landmark albums such as “Brown Sugar” and “Voodoo,” died Oct. 14. He was 51.

The cause was cancer, according to a statement from his family. In May, D’Angelo announced that he was canceling a performance at the annual Roots Picnic in Philadelphia because of complications from an unspecified surgery.

Born Michael Archer, D’Angelo helped launch a new era for R&B, nodding to an old-school soul sound while incorporating notes of funk, hip-hop and jazz. Dubbed “neo-soul” by his music manager, the subgenre became a mainstay of 1990s pop, associated with artists including Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell and Jill Scott.

 

D'Angelo performs in Chicago in 2000.
D'Angelo performs in Chicago in 2000.Paul Natkin / Getty Images file

 

Despite releasing only three studio albums, D’Angelo is considered by peers to be among the greatest R&B singers and musical talents of his generation. Born and raised in Richmond, he came from a line of preachers, with a musical education that began in the Pentecostal church. He played multiple instruments on his records, beginning with his 1995 studio debut “Brown Sugar.”

 

 

 

D’Angelo’s follow-up, 2000s “Voodoo,” won him two Grammy Awards and established him as an international star, in no small part due to the music video for the song “Untitled (How Does it Feel),” in which he appeared shirtless in close-ups. The video established him as a sex symbol and came to haunt the singer, who was concerned that the visuals were distracting from the music, according to friends.

D’Angelo receded from public view for more than a decade, and had a series of legal and personal troubles, including arrests for cocaine and marijuana possession

After years away, he released “Black Messiah” in 2014, an album that nodded to racial-justice protests, thrilled R&B fans and earned him two more Grammy Awards.

Since then, rumors swirled about how much longer the elusive singer would wait to release new work. Singer and musician Raphael Saadiq, a frequent collaborator, said in a Rolling Stone podcast interview last year that the pair were working on songs for a new album.

D’Angelo had three children, including a son he shared with singer-songwriter Angie Stone, who died in a car crash in March. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

A complete obituary will be published soon.

Source: CNN:::

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