When I was a kid, living in Lawrenceville, Virginia, I heard tales about how the James River was haunted: perhaps by the spirits of Indigenous people who were forced off this land, or maybe by those who gave their lives to revolution, or maybe by enslaved men, women, and children who drowned while trying to escape their plantations. The ghost stories seemed to suit a river that’s connected to America’s soul. Supernatural or not, the James carries a certain significance, traveling through the capital of the Confederacy and then to the first colonial capitals, following the contours of the nation’s story. It’s a wellspring for historians and conjurers alike.

One of the greatest of those conjurers is now gone. D’Angelo, the musician born Michael Eugene Archer, died on Tuesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was an enigma who defined a musical era, a recluse who battled his own demons, a runner who—in the tradition of his forefathers—sought a modicum of liberation for himself and his people. At just 51 years old, D’Angelo joined the ranks of many Black luminaries who shined brightly but not long.

For much of D’Angelo’s career, critics seemed to most appreciate his brilliance by way of comparison. After the release of his 1995 debut album, Brown Sugar, he was anointed as the vanguard of the nebulously defined “neo-soul” sound—a modern-day Smokey Robinson with straight-back braids. With his follow-up masterwork, Voodoo, D’Angelo was deemed an heir to Prince, another funk virtuoso whose sex-charged music upended R&B orthodoxy. What that type of praise seemed to value most wasn’t necessarily what D’Angelo was saying or trying to do, but the bygone mastery he evoked.