Angela Bofill

Brooklyn native Angela Bofill performed with Ricardo Morrero & the Group and the Dance Theater of Harlem chorus prior to launching her recording career in 1978. Her powerful and distinctive alto quickly established her as a standout interpreter of soul ballads. From 1978 through 1984 she enjoyed steady traction on the R&B charts, placing six albums inside the Top 40—five of those also reaching the pop Top 100—with Angel of the Night (1979) and Too Tough (1983) both climbing into the Top Ten. In the same stretch she landed seven singles on the R&B Top 40, one of them the Top Ten hit “Too Tough.” After her commercial momentum faded following 1984, she reappeared on the R&B charts with Intuition (1988), I Wanna Love Somebody (1993), and Love in Slow Motion (1996). In the mid-2000s she brought The Angela Bofill Experience to stages before a pair of strokes interrupted her work; she later received induction into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2023. On June 13, 2024, Bofill passed away at her daughter’s home in Vallejo, California, at the age of 70.