When news broke that D’Angelo had passed away, I felt that familiar punch to the gut that same ache I’ve felt too many times before.
Another Black artist gone too soon. Another legend whose genius helped define a generation, suddenly taken from us in his early fifties. This time, it was pancreatic cancer, one of the most aggressive and hardest-to-detect forms of the disease.
The pattern is becoming too clear to ignore. Whether it’s cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or sheer exhaustion, our Black artists are dying young. This is a major crisis that we can’t keep sweeping under the rug, whether it involves a celebrity or an average person.
D’Angelo’s death hits differently because his music always felt like soul therapy. He made vulnerability sound cool, sexy even. But behind that smooth falsetto and those perfectly sculpted abs was a man who struggled.
Fame nearly broke him once before. He wrestled with addiction and the pressure of being the face of neo-soul, disappearing from the spotlight for years at a time. And now, after quietly fighting pancreatic cancer, he’s gone at 51.
There are Black men in entertainment who never made it to what should’ve been their golden years. Fatman Scoop died at 53 from heart disease, collapsing mid-performance at a concert. Irv Gotti was 54 when a diabetes-related stroke took him. Magoo, half of the Timbaland & Magoo duo that soundtracked the late ’90s, was just 50 when his heart gave out. “Walk It Out” rapper DJ Unk died at 43. Actor Lance Reddick, 60. Actor Chadwick Boseman, 43.
- D’Angelo (2025, R&B/Neo-Soul singer)
- Irv Gotti (2025, Hip-hop executive and producer)
- Angie Stone (2025, R&B/Neo-Soul singer)
- DJ Unk (2025, Rapper and DJ)
- Magoo (2023, Rapper)
- Coolio (2022, Rapper)
- PnB Rock (2022, Rapper)
- Jesse Powell (2022, R&B singer)
- DMX (2021, Rapper)
- Biz Markie (2021, Rapper/DJ)
And there are many more…
They’re also telling us that success doesn’t make you invincible. Status doesn’t buy time. Whether you’re a Grammy winner or a working-class parent trying to make ends meet, the grind can kill you. And the grind is killing us.
In the entertainment industry, the grind is relentless. The touring. The performances. The late nights and long flights. The pressure to stay relevant, to stay perfect, to stay booked. For Black artists, that pressure is magnified.
That weight comes with anxiety, addiction, and burnout. And when health problems arise, especially the ones that disproportionately affect us, they often go unnoticed, untreated, or unspoken until it’s too late.
Pancreatic cancer, for instance, has one of the lowest survival rates, and Black Americans are about 30% more likely to be diagnosed than white Americans. We talk about breast cancer and prostate cancer, but not enough about this silent killer that claimed D’Angelo’s life. And that’s part of the larger problem, the lack of knowledge, the mistrust in healthcare systems, the stigma around talking about illness and vulnerability, especially for Black men.
We’ve got to change that.
We have to normalize talking about our health, the same way we talk about money, relationships, or pop culture. It’s time to make checkups a flex. To remind each other that rest isn’t a weakness. To stop glorifying “the hustle” as a lifestyle and start treating it like the warning sign it can be.
What D’Angelo and so many others remind me is that the body keeps score. You can’t out-sing, out-perform, or outwork a system designed to break you. And for Black artists, that system includes everything from the demands of the industry to the deeper inequities in healthcare and wellness access.
We have to treat the wellness of Black entertainers and Black people in general as a community priority. That means more conversations about early detection and preventive care. It means encouraging our brothers and sisters in the spotlight to take breaks without fear of fading away.
It means fans giving grace when our favorite stars step back for self-preservation instead of performance. I say this in general and not as if these celebrities had not made attempts at this in the past.
Ultimately, I don’t just want to celebrate our icons’ discographies. I want to see them gray and happy. I want to see them grow old enough to mentor, to reflect, to live long past their last hit.
D’Angelo deserved that. They all did.
And so do we.
