The Grammy award-winning R&B soul singer D'Angelo has died at the age of 51, his family has confirmed. The singer had been battling pancreatic cancer. "The shining star of our family has dimmed his light for us in this life…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," read the statement.
"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."
Born in 1974 as Michael Eugene Archer, he became known in the mid-1990s as a singer-songwriter and as the forefather of neo soul, a genre that emerged from R&B and was known for conscious lyrics. His debut 1995 album Brown Sugar received widespread acclaim from music critics. It debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums, spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, and received four Grammy Award nominations.
In 2000 D'Angelo released his number one album Voodoo, and the lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" earned him the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, while the album itself won Best R&B Album. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks.
The music video for "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" became controversial as it featured a naked D'Angelo from the hips up, singing to the camera. "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow-burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year," wrote Billboard at the time.
However, D'Angelo became uncomfortable with his new status as a sex symbol and struggled with alcoholism, and he disappeared from the public eye for almost a decade, returning to his home in Virginia. During that time. he split with his girlfriend and lost touch with his family, as well as parting ways with his longtime manager and tour manager.
In 2005, he was involved in a car accident and arrested on DUI and marijuana possession charges, which led to him checking into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua.
But behind the scenes, he continued to work alongside peers including Snoop Dogg, Common, and J Dilla, and in 2014, he released his first solo work since Voodoo.
Black Messiah dropped in December 2014, and was inspired by the racially-charged cases of Eric Garner and the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. The album was met with universal acclaim, and 11 years on still has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic.
He appeared in the documentary Sly Lives, about Sly Stone, and spoke about the pressures he felt about being a gifted Black public figure: "It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing music, sports. We as black folk, we always gotta be three-four-five steps ahead of everybody else in order just to break even. It’s just always been that way."
D'Angelo never married, but welcomed a son with ex-girlfriend Angie Stone in 1998; D'Angelo also had two other children: a daughter, born in 1999, and a son, born in 2010.Angie died in March 2025 in a car crash near Montgomery, Alabama at the age of 63.