D'Angelo, the Grammy-winning R&B singer recognized by his raspy yet smooth voice and for garnering mainstream attention with the shirtless "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video, has died. He was 51. The singer, whose real name was Michael Eugene Archer, died Tuesday, according to a statement from the family that said he died after a battle with cancer. A source told People he had been fighting pancreatic cancer and "was in hospice for two weeks but had been in the hospital for months." The AP reports his family called him a "shining star of our family and has dimmed his light for us in this life."
The New York Times praises D'Angelo's "signature vocal style ... a delicately expressive falsetto that, like Prince's, could build to an ecstatic wail that led critics to hail him as a worthy successor to the greatest traditions of Black pop." It backed up that assertion with this take from a 2000 Village Voice piece by Robert Christgau: "He is R&B Jesus, and I'm a believer."
As for that "Untitled" video, the Times reports it cemented D'Angelo's status "as an unabashed sex symbol" and pushed the 2000 album it hailed from, Voodoo, to No. 1 for two weeks. It also ended up driving him from sight. The Times paints him as bristling at the attention and that characterization. "After a breakdown on tour, he fell into a deep depression and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse before going to rehab. ... For much of the rest of his career, D'Angelo would vanish from the music world—and from the public eye—for years at a time," it observes. His next album, Black Messiah, didn't drop until 2014.