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Aretha Franklin, known as the “Queen of Soul”, died at 9:50 a.m., according to a family report. Franklin passed away peacefully at home in Detroit, surrounded by family and friends. The cause of death has been confirmed as pancreatic cancer. She was 76 years old. She had recently been hospitalized.

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Franklin was born on March 25, 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Barbara and Reverend C.L. Franklin. Her mother was a singer and her father was a Baptist minister and gospel singer known nationwide as “The Man with the Million Dollar Voice.” The family moved to Detroit in 1944 and Barbara left the family when Aretha was just six years old; she died four years later. Franklin learned to sing and play piano during her childhood and was already performing solos in her father’s church choir at 10 years old. Franklin began to tour with her father and got to know many of her family’s famous friends such as Mahalia Jackson, Smokey Robinson and even Martin Luther King Jr. At age 14, Franklin gave birth to her first son and recorded her first album, Songs of Faith.