Angie Stone

With a career stretching across four decades, Angie Stone emerged as an early architect of hip-hop and a driving force in neo-soul. Working as a singer, MC, self-taught keyboardist, prolific songwriter, and arranger, she first gained notice as part of the Sequence, the trio whose 1979 single “Funk You Up” became the second release on Sugar Hill Records and the initial rap single issued by an all-female group. After a short stint in the post-new jack swing R&B outfit Vertical Hold and a briefer association with Devox, she launched a solo trajectory that positioned her among neo-soul’s foremost voices, delivering incisive observations on romantic relationships through a voice both smoky and direct. Two gold-certified albums, Black Diamond (1999) and Mahogany Soul (2001), anchored her return, while Grammy nominations in the R&B field arrived for “More Than a Woman” (2002), “U-Haul” (2004), and “Baby” (2007). She has maintained a steady recording pace every few years alongside occasional acting roles, producing deeply soul-rooted albums such as Dream (2015), Full Circle (2019), and Love Language (2023) in close partnership with producer and manager Walter Millsap III and a tight circle of collaborators.

Born Angela Laverne Brown, she began performing gospel as a child at First Nazareth Baptist Church in her hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. Her father, who sang in a local gospel quartet, regularly brought his only child to concerts by groups including the Singing Angels and the Gospel Keynotes. During her youth she composed poetry, competed in sports, and received college basketball scholarship offers upon graduating high school. After taking a series of unfulfilling jobs, she saved enough to cut demos at the local PAW studio. She then joined Gwendolyn Chisholm and Cheryl Cook in the rap trio the Sequence, which scored several hits for Joe and Sylvia Robinson’s Sugar Hill label, among them “Funk You Up,” the Parliament remake “Funky Sound (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker),” and “I Don’t Need Your Love.” Subsequent sessions paired her with Mantronix, Vanessa Paradis, and Lenny Kravitz. She next formed the polished R&B trio Vertical Hold, whose 1993 single “Seems You’re Much Too Busy” reached number 17 on Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart. Following the release of the group’s second album in 1995, Stone contributed songwriting, recording, and background vocals to D’Angelo’s breakthrough debut Brown Sugar. Around the same period she worked with Devox, which issued an album in Japan in 1996 before releasing the more widely available 1997 single “Everyday,” co-written by Stone and D’Angelo.

She later signed with Arista as a solo artist and delivered Black Diamond in 1999, a Top Ten R&B album certified gold thanks to the singles “No More Rain (In This Cloud)” and “Everyday,” one of several tracks she has written for or with D’Angelo. The project earned her two Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. Moving to J Records, she released the gold-selling Mahogany Soul in 2001; its duet “More Than a Woman” with Calvin Richardson brought a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Stone Love (2004) matched its commercial success and featured another Grammy-nominated track, “U-Haul.” Shifting to the revived Stax imprint, she issued her fourth studio album, The Art of Love & War, in 2007; it topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and included the singles “Sometimes” and the Betty Wright collaboration “Baby,” which marked Stone’s third Grammy nomination.

Over the ensuing years her studio releases maintained solid chart placement even as labels shifted and acting opportunities multiplied. By the close of the 2000s she had appeared in films such as The Fighting Temptations, Pastor Brown, and Scary Movie 5, as well as the television series Moesha, Girlfriends, and Lincoln Heights. Unexpected, issued on Stax in 2009, reached the Top 20 of the R&B/hip-hop chart with its sleek yet funky approach. Rich Girl, her most stylistically varied collection, arrived three years later on Saguaro Road and climbed a notch higher. Dream (2015), a number-three R&B/hip-hop album, found her on Shanachie and reunited her with Millsap, whose Conjunction Entertainment roster also fostered ongoing creative ties with songwriters Candice Nelson, Balewa Muhammad, and Teak Underdue. The following year Goldenlane put out Covered in Soul, on which Stone reinterpreted classics first popularized by the Guess Who, the Five Stairsteps, and Carole King. Full Circle followed in 2019 under Conjunction’s banner, highlighted by the Jaheim duet “Gonna Have to Be You.” A subsequent licensing agreement with SoNo Recording Group yielded the 2023 album Love Language, led by the duet “The Gym” with Musiq Soulchild.