D’Angelo

Bio:
D’Angelo (born Michael Eugene Archer, February 11, 1974  Richmond, VA) was an American R&B singer/songwriter. His 1995 debut album, Brown Sugar, received amazing critical reviews and sold over two million copies. His follow up Voodoo in Jan. 2000 debuted at number one. Its lead single “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” was a huge hit on the R&B charts and won a Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal. Voodoo also won for Best R&B Album. He then took a 14-year hiatus from music as he battled personal problems including alcoholism, before releasing third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. D’Angelo died on October 14, 2025, after a private pancreatic cancer battle.

Best Known For:
Being an R&B sensation as a singer.songwriter. He performed a moving eulogy song to the late musician Prince on The Tonight Show Apr. 26.

Personal Life:
D’Angelo began playing piano at age three after seeing his older brother playing away on the keyboards. As his career progressed, he noted Prince as one of the icons that made him want to get into the music business professionally. “I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that’s the way I wanted to do it,” he said in a 1995 interview. He blew away the audience on the Apr. 26 broadcast of The Tonight Show by performing a tribute the the late singer with his emotional rendition of “Sometimes it snows in April,” a heartbreaking song off of Prince’s 1996 album Under The Cherry Moon.