R&B crooner D'Angelo had a very public rise; and has gained equally publicized noteriety for his current arrest-riddled fall, since a few years back.

Meanwhile, constant rumors maintained that a "comeback" was on the horizon...yet nothing ever seemed to materialize.

Now, after an almost 8 year hiatus, it's being rumored that a new deal with J Records has been signed - and D'Angelo actually could be returning - but is it too late...?

[And what exactly happened there anyway?]

AOL Blackvoice did an interesting piece on D'Angelo recently. Check out a portion of it below:

His last full length music project, 'Voodoo,' was released Jan. 11, 2000. And he has been virtually absent since the promotion of that masterful platter subsided from radio playlists.

The biggest track from the opus was the sensual Raphael Saadiq-produced single 'Untitled (How Does It Feel?),' which seemed to have taken on a life of its own.

Have some tell it: the sex-charged single and its equally stimulating music video (where the chisel-chested singer/songwriter, arguably, simulated receiving fellatio) is what was the beginning of the end of D'Angelo, who at that time was considered a progenitor of the burgeoning neo-soul music movement.

"'Untitled' wasn't supposed to be this mission statement for 'Voodoo,'" his former manager Dominique Trenier said in the August 2008 edition of 'Spin' magazine. "I'm glad the video did what it did, but he and I were both disappointed because, to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked guy," he continued, even admitting feelings of his own "guilt."

Now being known as a sex symbol is considered a gift to some. Ask Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.

But for the 'Brown Sugar' crooner, who with his career-defining debut album came across as a pudgy piano playing prodigy, it seems to have been the ultimate curse.

"We couldn't get through one song before women would start to scream for him to take off something," recalled in-demand horn player Roy Hargrove, who performed on the groundbreaking album and on the road with D'Angelo. "It wasn't about the music. All they wanted him to do was take off his clothes."

That was a tall order for a man Trenier referred to as not "a sexy dude" but a "real musician who wears glasses and plays video games."

"He'd get angry and start breaking s--t," recollected revered Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson – who is an intimate associate and longtime collaborator of D'Angelo's. "The audience thinking, 'F--k your art. I wanna see your ass!' made him angry."[Source]