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The Shadow Of His Smile
Michael D’angelo Archer: 1974–2025
“He’s just entered the spirit world, but it fucking feels unreal.“
“I don’t know if that’s the right word“
“Well you need to find one, cause I don’t know how to process losing this nigga, and I didn’t even know him. “
It was two weeks after I had a minor stroke, the day when my sister network came to see me, and the day Michael D’angelo Archer died. They took me to a rehab center they had paid for, and after I had done my workout and speech exercizes, were paused outside of their cars with minor lumps in their throats to a person.
“51?” “51”
“He had done enough.”
“At 51?”
Run down the greatest soul albums in the last three decades. 1990s? Brown Sugar. 2000’s? Voodoo. 2010s: Black Messiah tied with Lemonade. Beyoncé damn near said so in her tribute to him.
“Okay…Okay..but ain't no goodbye good or peaceful at 51. “
I did what I almost always did, which was listen to them talk. What I will say is that there needs to be another term for him other than “He’s just entered the spirit world”. Not when he was an Affrliacian church kid absorbing 300 years of black music and church history into a teenage frame. Not when he made Brown Sugar, a…
