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D'Angelo, R&B's reluctant icon, dies at 51

ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:

The singular soul musician D'Angelo has died after a battle with cancer, according to a statement from his family. He was 51 years old. He released just a small catalogue of albums over his career and remained elusive but always exalted. NPR Music's correspondent Rodney Carmichael has this appreciation.

RODNEY CARMICHAEL, BYLINE: D'Angelo's voice was unparalleled.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BROWN SUGAR")

D'ANGELO: (Singing) Let me tell you 'bout this girl. Maybe I shouldn't. I met her in Philly, and her name was Brown Sugar.

CARMICHAEL: It was a falsetto that was equal parts sacred and sensual. Like a lot of Black musicians who rose to prominence in the 20th century, he got his start in the church. He was the son of a Pentecostal preacher, and he sang gospel in the choir and later called the stage his pulpit. In a career that spanned 30 years, his discography weighed in at a very succinct three albums. And in the songs he made, he managed to mash up the entire gamut of Black music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BROWN SUGAR")

D'ANGELO: (Singing) I don't know how to behave. I want some of your brown sugar - sugar.

CARMICHAEL: His soulful, bluesy debut, "Brown Sugar," heralded the birth of a genre - the sound called neo-soul. The sound was at the forefront of an alternative revolution happening in Black music in the mid- to late '90s. It was a total revival of '60s- and '70s-inspired soul at a time when hip-hop had the wheel. D'Angelo's own manager coined the term neo-soul, but his restless and perfectionist client never stood still musically. He did disappear for years at a time, though. His second album came out in 2000, and it was his most iconic. "Voodoo" was filled with sensuality and future funk.

(SOUNDBITE OF D'ANGELO SONG, "DEVIL'S PIE")

CARMICHAEL: And to make it, he pushed his collaborators, including his drummer, Questlove, to new places.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

QUESTLOVE: You got to understand, like, the way that Black musicianship was going, you had to be precise. It was about gospel chops. It was about how many drums you can hit per hour (imitating fast drumming sounds).

CARMICHAEL: This is Questlove in 2014, talking about D'Angelo's vision for "Voodoo" in an interview on stage for the Red Bull Music Academy.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

QUESTLOVE: And he just basically came in and deprogrammed me. And so I was playing, like, a metronome for him. He's like, nah. No. Like, lay it back a little bit.

CARMICHAEL: "Voodoo" was a hit. And it turned D'Angelo into a sex symbol, especially when the video for the song "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" dropped in 2000 with his suggestive, slow camera shot panning from his head down to his shirtless torso.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNTITLED (HOW DOES IT FEEL)")

D'ANGELO: (Singing) Girl, it's all on you. Have it your way. And if you want, you can decide.

CARMICHAEL: The response to that image haunted him for years. So did the term neo-soul, which he rejected on the Red Bull Music Academy stage in 2014 in a conversation with the writer, Nelson George.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

D'ANGELO: Anytime you put a name on something, that you kind of - you just put it in the box. You want to be in a position where you can grow as an artist. And so - well, damn, you're neo-soul artist. Why won't you do neo-soul? And I never claimed that. I never claimed I do neo-soul, you know? I used to say - when I first came, I used to always say, I do Black music. I make Black music.

(APPLAUSE)

CARMICHAEL: His eclectic approach to Black music turned transcendent, mixing his gospel roots with guitar-driven performances in the lead-up to his third and final album, "Black Messiah," at the end of 2014.

(SOUNDBITE OF D'ANGELO AND THE VANGUARD SONG, "TILL IT'S DONE (TUTU)")

CARMICHAEL: D'Angelo was grounded but also cosmic. He pushed Black music forward and backward simultaneously. He raced in the space and time between his past and his future. His approach to rhythm and timing and the way he used his voice as an instrument all felt possessed by an ancestral spirit. And I think we're going to be reckoning with it for a long time to come.

(SOUNDBITE OF D'ANGELO AND THE VANGUARD SONG, "TILL IT'S DONE (TUTU)")

NADWORNY: That's NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TILL IT'S DONE (TUTU)")

D'ANGELO: (Singing) In a world where we all circle the fiery sun. With a need for love, what have we become? Tragedy flows unbound, and there's no place to run. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Rodney Carmichael is NPR Music's hip-hop staff writer. An Atlanta-bred cultural critic, he helped document the city's rise as rap's reigning capital for a decade while serving on staff as music editor, culture writer and senior writer for the defunct alt-weekly Creative Loafing.
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