D’Angelo, Acclaimed and Reclusive R&B Innovator, Dies at 51

D’Angelo, the acclaimed neo-soul singer who found fame in the 1990s and early 2000s with an innovative and sensuous take on 1970s R&B, as well as with a risqué music video that briefly made him a pop culture phenomenon but helped drive him into nearly a decade of seclusion, died on Tuesday. He was 51.

His death was confirmed in a statement by his family, which did not say where he died but gave the cause as cancer.

During the first phase of his career, leading up to his triumph with the 2000 album “Voodoo,” D’Angelo was a leading light of a revolution in soul music, melding the seductive melodies of classic singers like Al Green and Marvin Gaye with the beats and urgency of hip-hop.

His biggest songs, like “Lady,” “Brown Sugar” and “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” were hailed as supreme examples of the trend, which sought not a revival of Black pop traditions but a transformation of them. Each of those tracks became a Top 10 hit on Billboard’s R&B chart, D’Angelo went into heavy rotation on Black radio stations and “Lady” went to No. 10 on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 chart.

D’Angelo’s signature vocal style was a delicately expressive falsetto that, like Prince’s, could build to an ecstatic wail. Also like Prince, he arranged his music meticulously, served as his own producer and played guitar. Critics exalted him as a worthy successor to the greatest traditions of Black pop.