UB Remembers: Vesta Williams “The Voice of An Angel”

80’s R&B diva Vesta Williams, who often went by just Vesta, was found dead yesterday in her hotel room in Los Angeles. No immediate details surrounding the death were immediately released, she was 53 years old!

Vesta scored a big hit with “Congratulations,” a song about a woman who is distraught upon learning that her former lover is getting married. “Congratulations,” with its vocal acrobatics and dramatic story, became a talent show staple. However her biggest charting single was “Special” from her album of the same name, the single reached #2 on Billboard‘s R&B chart! Her other hits included “I’ll Be Good to You” (with Najee), “Sweet, Sweet Love” and “Don’t Blow a Good Thing”

Vesta had one of the biggest personalities you would ever meet and acted as well. She played Monica on the 90’s sitcom Sister, Sister and appeared in the 1993 film Posse.’ Just last month Vesta appeared on The Mo’Nique Show & performed her hit single “Congratulations.”

In the 90’s, Vesta made headlines for her dramatic weight loss. She told EBONY that she started to rapidly gain weight when her singing career began to falter. Williams, who was 5-foot-3, eventually reached a size 26. She said her size was the reason she lost her recording contract.

“When I lost my record deal and my phone wasn’t ringing, I realized that I had to reassess who Vesta was and figure out what was going wrong,” she said. “I knew it wasn’t my singing ability. So it had to be that I was expendable because I didn’t have the right look.”

The singer went on to lose 100 lbs, and got down down to a size 6, while finding something of a second career as a songwriter and session singer. In recent years she had become an advocate for the prevention of childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes.

We here at UrbanBridgez.com SALUTE Vesta Williams for her contribution to great R&B music and we mourn her death! We would like to send our condolences to her family, friends and fans!