D’Angelo has passed at age 51 after a private struggle with pancreatic cancer. He rose in the ’90s as one of the key artists of the Neo-soul movement, which marked a paradigm shift in R&B. A Pentecostal church upbringing and serious study of Prince and foundational Black music gave him the stock to become a futuristic funk sorcerer. Brown Sugar, Voodoo, and The Black Messiah mastered tradition and then personalized it with nuance and a vision that, unlike his predecessors, included hip-hop. D’Angelo became a major link between 20th- and 21st-century soul music. The hit records and adulation from the music industry complicated things for him after the reaction to his naked physique in the “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” video. He eventually worked through those feelings and returned to the mission of making pure music free from commercial obsessions. Those albums became a guiding light for successive generations of artists, including contemporary names like Kendrick Lamar and Doja Cat.
Of course, soul fans like me are trying to understand why he passed only seven months after his former personal and professional partner, Angie Stone. The trajectory of her career as a hip-hop pioneer was one of the things that linked their approach to his music and hers. Whether he was working as a member of The Soulquarians, collaborating with Lauryn Hill on their classic “Nothing Even Matters,” or touring with The Vanguard, he changed the way they approached their artistry. We last saw him earlier this year in his friend and colleague Questlove’s Sly Stone documentary. Coincidentally, Sly was the other Stone to pass this year, leaving only a few funk lords left on earth. At the time of D’Angelo’s passing, he was working with Raphael Saadiq on his fourth album.
