With D’Angelo, God Was Always In The Room

Michael Eugene Archer was an artistic savant. A musical prodigy from Richmond, Virginia, who morphed into the culture’s beloved, soulful D’Angelo, the star we now mourn. As Michael, the church gifted him with a certain musicality and tone. You can’t sing the way he did if you didn’t grow up using your gift in the Black church. As D’Angelo, his voice reinforced his innate vulnerability and honed a reverence, like the way Shug Avery described the color purple to Celie.

In 1995, he released “Brown Sugar,” the titular single from his debut album. I loved “Brown Sugar,” but “Lady,” the second single, was my latch. As a 10-year-old, I was leaps away from relating to the song’s romantic themes. But as a church girl, I knew exactly which tradition it drew from. It was praise and worship. Call and response. Organ. Bass, drums, and tambourine. Gospel chord progressions quaking with beautiful ad-libs. Trance-induced harmonies and vocal layering.

With the 2000 release of his sophomore album “Voodoo,” followed by his third release “Black Messiah” 14 years later, his commitments never changed. He was secular and holy; carnal and chaste. A purveyor of Black unity. A man with many weights.

I think about the people who loved him, now left behind: his children, Michael Jr., Imani, and Morocco. His oldest child Michael, who he shares with the late Angie Stone, lost both of his satellites within seven months of one another. 

While mostly kept out of the spotlight during their formative years, Michael and Imani released separate statements following their father’s death.

“I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers during these very difficult times, as it has been a very rough and sad year for me,” Michael told PEOPLE in an October 14 statement. “I ask that you please continue to keep me in your thoughts as it will not be easy, but one thing that both my parents taught me was to be strong, and I intend to do just that.”

On October 15, Imani shared an Instagram carousel documenting her childhood memories with the late singer. “I will forever honor you and carry on your legacy Dad. Everything I do will always be for you,” her caption read. “I’m gonna miss you and hearing your voice every single day. I’ll always be your BabyGirl.”

I think about D’Angelo’s nuclear and extended family, the Soulquarians (rest in peace J Dilla and Roy Hargrove), the collective of musicians who were D’Angelo’s counterparts, having to say goodbye to another from their tribe. I think about how Questlove, Common, Erykah Badu, Yasiin Bey, Q-Tip, Bilal, and Pino Palladino are grieving, and I cry for Kendra Foster and  Raphael Saadiq, his long-time collaborator, who will now eulogize another brother in the span of seven months (rest in peace D’Wayne Wiggins).

I’m holding space for The Roots, Lauryn Hill, DJ Premiere, The Alchemist, and many more who loved him. Not just for the illusion of who he was as a man and artist, but because they lived in his heartbeat.

I grieve with the rest of his fans who tremble when the bass line of “Lady” begins, or bounce when they hear the opening snaps in “Nothing Even Matters.” Who belt out the last chorus on “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” and feel the ancestral drum in “Africa” and “The Charade.” Who body roll to “Brown Sugar,” and two-step to “Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes of Mine.”

I appreciated the boldness of his dualities. The gift of second chances after affliction, and committing to your art, without self-imposed limitations. He taught us how to taste the fruit of the relentless redefining process and how studying your artistic predecessors is a candle in the night when your significance is questioned. His beauty, for which he often shied away.

D’Angelo is the embodiment of an artist’s artist. To levitate with power and conviction when God is in the room. To shelter in the dark, waiting for redemption and restoration when God isn’t.