UB In Memoriam: The Multifaceted Angie Stone

This morning one of our favorites Angie Stone was killed in a car crash. Deborah R. Champagne, Angie‘s spokesperson confirmed.

She and members of her band were heading back to Atlanta from a gig that took place the night before in Mobile, AL. when an 18-wheeler truck struck Stone’s sprinter and causing it to flip three times. Angie was declared deceased at the scene of the accident.

“Never in a million years did we ever expect to get this horrible news. Our mom is and will always be our everything. We are still trying to process and are completely heartbroken,” Diamond Stone and Michael Archer. (Angie Stone’s children).

“We are truly devastated at this unexpected and unfortunate tragedy, and there are simply no words to express how we feel,” shares Walter Millsapp III (Angie’s longtime Manager). “No no no, I could not believe it when I received the call that the most beautiful soul, is now gone. I am completely heartbroken, we loved so many of the same things and people. I put her on the phone with Chaka Khan a bunch of times for them to laugh about the old days, and Chaka who is a big fan, loved her very much. The Angie I knew was always a beam of light and super positive, her contribution to Hip-hop and R&B is cemented in our collective consciousness,” Claude Villani – CEO of SRG-ILS Group.

Angie Stone is survived by her two children, Diamond Stone and Michael Archer, grandchildren, family members and adoring fans across the globe.

The family thanks her millions of fans worldwide and ask for privacy during these difficult times.

Angie Stone got her big break by joining Gwendolyn Chisolm and Cheryl Cook to complete the rap trio The Sequence.

The Columbia, S.C., native cofounded the first female rap trio, in the early ’80s, forgoing a basketball scholarship.

It was with that group that she recorded the hits “Funk You Up,” “I Don’t Need Your Love (Part One),” and “Funky Sound” for the record label Sugarhill.

Later she formed an R&B trio named Vertical Hold and toured as a sax player with Lenny Kravitz.

That soon led to her first commercial success “Seems You’re much Too Busy,” a dance track on Vertical Hold’s album that became an R&B Top 40 hit in 1993.

Angie Stone made her debut as a solo artist under Arista with her 1999 album “Black Diamond” before she moved to J Records in 2001.

Angie also co-wrote and coproduced D’Angelo’s 1995 ”Brown Sugar,” often regarded as the birth of neo-soul.

The pair also collaborated on Angie Stone’s second child, Michael D’Angelo Archer. That waning alliance spawned headaches when her own ”Black Diamond” debuted in 1999. ”I spent a lot of time defending myself. My life was such an open book that I’d never had a chance to redefine who I was. A lot of people thought I was bouncing back from heartbreak. I had to prove that I was somebody before I was a baby-mama” — that is, mama to a superstar’s kid — ”and I didn’t like that.”

Her debut album was followed by “Mahogany Soul” in 2001.

The lead single from “Mahogany Soul” entitled “Brotha,” penned by Raphael Saadiq – was a much needed and appreciated shout out to Black men. The single was a wordwide hit single and featured a remix featuring Alicia Keys and Eve.

Longevity is something Angie Stone talked about in “Soul Insurance” from “Mahogany Soul‘s” opening cut. “The neo-soul boat will sink,” she predicted. “It’s getting heavy because too many people are jumping on [to the detriment of] other artists. True soul music comes from within. It’s more gospel vs. hip-hop. It encompasses that Marvin Gaye/Aretha Franklin kind of energy, hitting you hard when you put it on. That’s why Curtis still sounds good. Today’s sound will have been played out 10 years from now. But real soul never dies.”

In 2001, Angie recorded with the late great Prince, on the song and visual “U Make My Sun Shine.” From his shelved “High” album.

The single reached #8, on the Billboard Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart.

“Stone Love” in 2004. Angie’s first two albums went gold, and her 2004 album quickly climbed to #14 on the Billboard charts, making it her biggest hit.

In 2007 she released her fourth studio album, “The Art of Love & War” which became her first #1 album on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop charts.

“The Art of Love & War,” debuted at a career-best #11 on The Billboard 200.

Diagnosed with diabetes in 1999, Angie Stone began a diabetes awareness campaign in 2008 in conjunction with FACE (Fearless African Americans Connected and Empowered) at the Southside YMCA in Chicago. The campaign was launched to inspire behavioral changes in African Americans, who are disproportionately affected by diabetes.

Outside of music, Angie played the lead in the theatre tour “Issues: We’ve Got Them All.” She then appeared on the fourth season of VH1’s reality television show “Celebrity Fit Club.”

Angie Stone appeared in such TV shows as “Moesha” and “Girlfriends” and such films as “The Fighting Temptations.”

In 2013, Angie joined TV One‘s R&B Divas.

“This business is hard,” Angie stated to Billboard. “I’ve been waiting all these years, and I’ve survived.” Pointing to her heart for emphasis, she added, can’t be touched right now, because God has me right here.”

In 2019, she released her ninth studio album “Full Circle” and in 2023 she released her final album “Love Language.”

Angie Stone was honored by the Black Music Honors in 2021 and UB spoke with Angie about why she hadn’t received honors before that. Watch below.

In June 2024, Angie Stone was inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.

“My thing is, I don’t compare. I’m different, I stand in a class of my own. There are adults in the world. This whole world is not made of children. There has to be someone who is a keeper of that flame, and I’d like to be that person.”

UB Sends Our Condolences to the Family, Friends and Fans of Legendary Angie Stone!

A singer, MC, self-taught keyboardist, and prolific songwriter, Angie Stone’s first claim to fame was her membership in the Sequence, a pioneering hip-hop trio who arrived with “Funk You Up” (1979), the second release on Sugar Hill Records and the first rap single by an all-female group. Following a brief period with the post-new jack swing R&B act Vertical Hold, Stone began a fruitful and lasting solo career as one of neo-soul’s leading lights, known for providing sharp insight into romantic relationships with her smoky yet upfront voice. She established her solo career with a pair of gold-certified albums, Black Diamond (1999) and Mahogany Soul (2001), and added to her accolades with Grammy nominations in the R&B field for “More Than a Woman” (2002), “U-Haul” (2004), and “Baby” (2007). Increasingly occupied with acting roles, she has continued to record every few years, exemplified by deeply soul-rooted LPs such as Rich Girl (2012), Dream (2015), and Full Circle (2019). In 2023, Angie released her 10th and final studio project, “Love Language,” under her new label partnership with the SRG-ILS Group.

Stone, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, began singing gospel music at a young age at First Nazareth Baptist Church. Her father, a member of a local gospel quartet, would take his only child to see performances by gospel artists such as the Singing Angels and the Gospel Keynotes. During her youth, she wrote poetry, played sports, and, after high-school graduation, was offered college basketball scholarships. While working dead-end jobs, Stone began saving money to record her own demos at a local studio called PAW. She joined Gwendolyn Chisholm and Cheryl Cook in the rap trio the Sequence, who recorded hits for Joe and Sylvia Robinson’s Sugar Hill label. These included “Funk You Up,” a remake of Parliament’s hit “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker” called “Funky Sound (Tear the Roof Off),” and “I Don’t Need Your Love.” Soon after, Stone worked with futuristic rap group Mantronix and rocker Lenny Kravitz, and formed the sophisticated R&B trio Vertical Hold, who in 1993 hit the R&B Top 40 with “Seems You’re Much Too Busy.” The group split after its second album.

Stone subsequently signed to Arista as a solo artist and recorded 1999’s Black Diamond, a Top Ten R&B album that was certified gold on the strength of the singles “No More Rain (In This Cloud)” and “Everyday” (one of several songs she has written either for or with D’Angelo). The album won her a pair of Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. She shifted to J for 2001’s Mahogany Soul, another gold seller. That album’s “More Than a Woman,” a duet with Calvin Richardson, earned a Grammy nomination in the category of Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Stone Love, released in 2004, fared just as well commercially with “U-Haul,” another Grammy-nominated performance, among the highlights. Stone smoothly moved to the revitalized Stax label for her fourth studio album, 2007’s The Art of Love & War. It topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and featured two of her best singles, “Sometimes” and the Betty Wright collaboration “Baby” — the latter of which made Stone a three-time Grammy nominee.

Throughout the next several years, the singer’s studio output remained consistent in terms of chart performance, despite a series of label changes and frequent acting work. (By the end of the 2000s, Stone had appeared in several movies, including The Fighting Temptations, Pastor Brown, and Scary Movie 5, as well as the television programs Moesha, Girlfriends, and Lincoln Heights.) Unexpected, released on Stax in 2009, hit the Top 20 of the R&B chart. Saguaro Road issued Rich Girl, Stone’s most stylistically diverse set, three years later, and it peaked slightly higher. For Dream, released in 2015, she joined the veteran-loaded Shanachie roster. The next year, the Goldenlane label issued Covered in Soul, for which Stone updated classics popularized by the Guess Who, the Five Stairsteps, and Carole King. Stone changed labels again for the 2019 set Full Circle, featuring the Jaheim duet “Gonna Have to Be You.”