Roberta Flack, the legendary R&B singer known for timeless hits like The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song, has passed away at the age of 88.
“We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025,” her representatives announced in a statement. “She died peacefully, surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
Flack revealed in 2022 that she had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, which had taken away her ability to sing.
A Life Shaped by Music
Born in North Carolina and raised in Arlington, Virginia, Flack’s musical journey began with classical piano. A gifted musician, she earned a full scholarship to Howard University at just 15. Though she trained in classical music and worked as a teacher, her love for jazz and R&B led her to perform in clubs, where she accompanied opera singers and sang pop standards during breaks.
“The whole while I was studying classical music, especially in my younger years, I was also doing a lot of doo-ron-ron, shoo-doo-bee-doo… so I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded by music all of my life,” she once said.
Her breakthrough came when jazz musician Les McCann discovered her singing in a club and was deeply moved. “Her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known,” he later recalled.
A Legacy of Chart-Topping Hits
Flack’s career soared in the early 1970s when her rendition of Ewan MacColl’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was featured in Clint Eastwood’s film Play Misty for Me. The song became a massive hit, earning her a Grammy for Song of the Year. She repeated the feat the following year with Killing Me Softly With His Song, securing her place in music history.
Her success continued with Feel Like Makin’ Love in 1974, after which she took a step back from performing to focus on recording and charitable work. Throughout the 1980s, she toured extensively and collaborated with icons like Donny Hathaway and Miles Davis.
Flack returned to the charts in 1991 with Set the Night to Music, a duet with Maxi Priest, and in 2012, she released Let It Be Roberta, an album of Beatles covers.
A True Soulful Artist
Flack often described herself as a singer who put her whole heart into every performance. “What I consider myself is a soulful singer, in that I try to sing with all the feeling that I have in my body and my mind,” she once told The Guardian.
Reverend Jesse Jackson praised her as “socially relevant and politically unafraid,” and beyond music, she dedicated herself to education, founding the Roberta Flack School of Music in New York.
In 2020, a year after suffering a stroke, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. “It’s a tremendous and overwhelming honor,” she said at the time. “I’ve tried my entire career to tell stories through my music. This award is a validation that my peers heard my thoughts and took in what I have tried to give.”
Her influence extended to new generations when The Fugees’ Grammy-winning cover of Killing Me Softly became a global hit in 1996. Flack later performed the song alongside Lauryn Hill, cementing her legacy as a bridge between musical eras.
With a career spanning decades, Roberta Flack’s voice and artistry will live on, touching hearts just as she always intended.
