RIP to the late great Michael D’Angelo Archer, one of the finest soul singers to emerge from the 90’s. He passed away much too early in October 2025 of pancreatic cancer.

He put out 3 legendary albums – 1995’s Brown Sugar, 2000’s Voodoo, and 2014’s Black Messiah. The first two each sold millions and made him famous; Black Messiah was critically heralded but did not reach the charts like the first two.

For various reasons he struggled to maintain that early fame. Partly due to the iconic video for Untitled (How Does It Feel?) where he performs naked, showing off a perfectly sculpted body, the man behind the image began to deal with stage fright and chemical issues. He felt that video hurt his career as much as it helped, and as he aged and gained weight, he could not imagine performing so naked again. He harbored thoughts that some fans wanted to see his body more than hear his songs, which lead to confidence issues.

He also hoped to produce his music like his artistic hero Prince, where he is the main arranger, featured instrumentalist, and calls the shots in regard to the business around the album. This can be a perilous and slow way to work and puts you in the target hairs of the record label and might have added to his inability to steadily release albums.

He also chafed under the labelling of “neo-soul”, feeling that an artist must grow far beyond an initial genre label. As he worked on a follow-up to Voodoo reports were of fantastic arrangements that mixed soul with Beatles-like harmonies and Hendrix-like guitar. But none of those projects made it out as he struggled with addiction and the weirdness of being a worldwide sex symbol.

Bottom line, he was a dynamic singer and talented writer with a great style. People loved him no matter how he looked or what we heard he might be going through off stage.

He was a couple with singer Angie Stone in the late 90’s and they have a son together, born Michael Archer Jr., known professionally as Swayvo Twain. Angie died in a car crash less than a year before D’Angelo passed from cancer. The poor guy lost both of his extremely talented parents in the same year.

Here’s a short clip of D’Angelo with The Roots playing the Ohio Player’s classic blues dirge from Pleasure – Our Love Has Died.