Da Brat Biography

The recording artist and producer known as D’Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in Richmond, Virginia in 1974. D’Angelo grew up in a religious household, and so his earliest exposure to music was through the church. He was drawn to music from an early age, experimenting with the piano when he was as young as three. When D’Angelo was eighteen, he left school and moved to New York in pursuit of a music career.

D’Angelo spent his early years in New York honing his compositional skills. He established the group Michael Archer and Precise, with which he experienced some early successes. Following a successful performance at the Apollo Theater for their Amateur Night, D’Angelo began to garner some attention and eventually signed with EMI Music first as a writer, and then shortly thereafter as a solo artist.

D’Angelo’s earliest success as a writer came with the song “U Will Know,” written for Black Men United. The song rose to the number five spot on the R&B charts, and into the top forty on the mainstream charts. His reputation for songwriting helped to create significant anticipation of his own launch as a solo artist, and by the time Brown Sugar was released in 1985, D’Angelo’s star was already on the rise.

The album rose to the number four spot on the charts and remained on the charts for more than sixty weeks. It spawned the hits “Cruisin,” “Brown Sugar,” and “Lady,” and rose to platinum status. Brown Sugar’s follow-up, Voodoo, was an even greater hit upon its release in 2001, earning D’Angelo a Grammy for Best R&B Album and giving audiences the hits “Left & Right” and “Devil’s Pie.”

Although D’Angelo has not released any new studio albums since Voodoo, in 2013 he released the complilation album Icon D’Angelo, and he recently completed the Liberation Tour in 2012. D’Angelo continues to perform and compose.