D’Angelo was a popular and talented R&B artist, producer and member of the Soulquarians who possessed (was possessed by?) a supernatural talent. He could feel what you feel, and make you feel some kind of way with his music. He was good at organizing independent artists; metaphorically herding cats!
When you hear his music, you know it’s him. His vibe comes through regardless of who he’s working with. D’Angelo was working from a place of emotion and spirituality. He was also a stickler for rhythm. I think his elegance with this sometimes goes unnoticed, kind of like Val Jeanty. D’Angelo’s magic connects in such a way that people felt like they were on intimate terms with him whether they knew him or not. That must have been such a strange experience for him to meet people who had certain expectations about what he might want to do with them.
The paradox of D’Angelo’s life is that he is a yin Water person, and yet, he can easily kindle. This brings a lot of success and other rewards but maybe it also means he would go through long periods without creating new music. His creativity could protect him from being transformed to Fire but it couldn’t prevent it completely.
Probably the most fascinating thing to me about his bazi is the huge amount of talent D’Angelo possessed and how fame interfered with his creativity. Unfortunately, this is a common experience of people with talent. Maybe if you can keep your fame smaller you’ll be healthier? Is it possible to keep a conflagration small (and alive) once it’s started? Is there privacy anymore?
D’Angelo recently passed at the age of 51 due to pancreatic cancer. He was in a specific timing of the Earth Punishment when he passed in October. His favorable elements are pretty clear I think. I’ve done some reverse engineering based on his death date to verify. D’Angelo’s current Fate of 辛未 Metal Sheep started in 2022, a 壬寅 Water Tiger year.
I have estimated his birth time to be in the Horse hour.
Ba Zi of D’Angelo
b. February 11 1974 午 hour
How Does It Feel?
What this bazi says to me is that consciously or unconsciously, D’Angelo was enlisted (signed up?) to deal with an ancestral situation. In some ways, it is his job to “hurt the officer”, to go against enforcement, rules and limits on how much space he should take up on behalf of pleasure. D’Angelo’s music was sexy and sexual, this was part of his brand that may have led some people to take him less seriously as an artist. We are easily distracted by the physical and probably rightly so.
Being a 癸 yin Water person, he had an element of spirituality that was heightened by the 未 Sheep in his day pillar. Water Sheep knows things even without you telling them. They have prophetic “dreams”. They have a storehouse of creativity that comes out when they are clashed – when they get shaken up by life. There is only one water element in the bazi and that’s him, suggesting a feeling of loneliness in life. For an artist, this could be their preference. They want to keep space for the creativity.
I think this bazi would like to follow or feed Wood, and that any element weakening wood could be problematic. Wood was always asking for D’Angelo’s attention, asking him to give more. He did not have the capacity for that. In the times when his self element turned to Fire, his creative flow to Wood was obstructed. There are times when Metal would be a favorable element, but not always. D’Angelo himself said he would have dry spells with his creativity and in his natal chart you can see how that works.
Looking at his ten year timings in his life, and other signs, there may have been something related to 1993 which was the beginning of his illness. I don’t see the physical disease process as being unrelated to genetics, epigenetics, trauma and environment. We are not separate from our bodies, at least while we are incarnated, our bodies are not separate from our spirit and emotional body.
Death Date of D’Angelo
October 14 2025 午 Horse Hour
| Hour | Day | Month | Year | ||
| yang Wood | yang Fire | yang Fire | yin Wood | ||
| 甲 | 丙 | 丙 | 乙 | ||
| 午 | 辰 | 戌 | 巳 | ||
| Horse | Dragon | Dog | Snake | ||
As seems to be the case for some artists, an excess of Fire (fame) can be bad for your health, regardless of your self element. Of course this isn’t true for all creative people.
I hope he is at peace now.
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