This year, Black communities grieved the loss of legendary talents like D’Angelo and Angie Stone. However, while social media users shared a collective grief, their son Michael Archer II, also known as Swayo Twain, carried the inexplicable weight of losing not one but both parents within months of each other.
“After it happened, [there was] just a silence,” he told Tamron Hall. “That was the craziest thing about it. Everything is so quiet.”
Specifically reflecting on the unexpected loss of his mother, who suffered a fatal car accident on March 1, 2025, Archer II explained how Stone was like his best friend. But in the final months of her life, he had taken on the role of caretaker as she battled kidney failure.
“My mama was on dialysis, and she was trying to actively get a new kidney,” he shared, explaining how she would do dialysis in the morning and then “handle her business” in the afternoon, which included her tour at the time. And after months of waiting, on February 28, her son’s birthday, Stone was reportedly approved for a new kidney.
“She was a warrior. She didn’t tell anybody, didn’t ask for sympathy or anything. In my heart of hearts, I know she didn’t let that kidney beat her. She fought it,” he continued.
When it came to his father, genre-bending R&B singer D’Angelo, Archer revealed that he did not know about his father’s pancreatic cancer until he received a FaceTime call.
“I kind of put two and two together. He called me on FaceTime and I [saw] him…I saw what i saw,” he shared, explaining how he then reached out to uncles to understand what was going on. But to his surprise, D’Angelo had encouraged people not to tell him.
“He had kind of told everybody, don’t tell me. He was like ‘cuz you’re going through enough,’” he continued. “I end up getting that call, man, both my uncles called me at the same time with the doctor on the phone, and they basically gave me the news.”
As he continues to navigate this new reality, Archer expressed gratitude for the outpour of messages, prayers, and uplifting words. Now, with his own budding musical career, he plans to honor his parents’ musical legacy his way.
“I could never be them. I could never do what they did. They are who they are,” he concluded. “But I am them, I come from them. So I just have to be myself, and by being myself, I honor them.”
