Angie Stone

singer; soul musician; songwriter

Personal Information

Born and raised in Columbia, SC, in 1965; father sang in a local gospel quartet; Son, Michael.
Education: Attended high school in Columbia; star basketball player; received but turned down several college basketball scholarship offers.

Career

Soul vocalist. Joined rap group the Sequence, ca. 1982; group released album The Sequence, 1982; worked as singer of television and radio commercial jingles, 1980s; joined group Vertical Hold, 1988; group released album Vertical Hold, 1992; active as songwriter for D'Angelo, Mary J. Blige, Lenny Kravitz, and other artists, 1990s; released solo debut Black Diamond, 1999.

Life's Work

Though the era of classic soul vocals reached its peak in the 1970s, it lived on into the twenty-first century in the voice of Angie Stone. Around the year 2000 a group of vocalists, predominantly female, turned to older soul and R&B styles in order to express various musical ideas, but it was Stone who evoked the pure vocal sounds of the pre-hip hop era. Releasing her debut solo album at the age of 35, Stone outsold many of the artists half her age who had begun to dominate the U.S. musical scene.

Stone was born in Columbia, South Carolina, around 1965. A strong gospel influence in her mature vocal style resulted from her singing gospel music at the city's First Nazareth Baptist Church and by attending gospel concerts with her father, a member of a local gospel quartet. In high school Stone was a standout basketball player (her father was also a fine football player). She received several offers of college basketball scholarships. But Stone, who had written poetry since she was a girl, hoped for a musical career; standing in front of her bedroom mirror she would lip-synch whole concerts to recordings of soul vocalists such as Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye.

Pioneer Female Rap Artist

Stone broke into the music business as a rap artist--which was ironic since her music would later be seen as offering an alternative to a hip-hop-dominated urban radio mainstream. In New York in the early 1980s, she joined with two other women to form the Sequence. That group landed on the roster of the pioneering rap label Sugarhill, and they are generally regarded as the first female act in the rap genre. Stone, who was known as "Angie B," delivered raps in such Sequence dance-club hits as a remake of Parliament's "Tear the Roof Off."

Statuesque and strong, with a large Afro hairstyle that she has retained throughout her career, Stone had a look that was little influenced by the high-fashion inclination of many urban artists. "I loved Pam Grier. Cleopatra Jones," she told Rolling Stone. "Strong, beautiful, dark-skinned women. Pam had the Afro, the strong 'I'm beautiful, but I'm bad and I'll take it there.'" But as with many of the other acts of rap's first generation, the popularity of the Sequence did not last. For a time, Stone supported herself by singing commercial jingles.

Recorded Budweiser Jingles

"I did Afro Sheen," she told Rolling Stone. "Budweiser, too. Budweiser ran for eight years, and I'm gonna tell you something: That stuff really pays well, because it really helped me survive when I was in transition with my career." But Stone's creative side didn't take long to reassert itself. A prolific songwriter, she began to work with other rap acts, such as the group Mantronix and the innovative white rapper Lenny Kravitz. By 1988 Stone had formed an R&B trio, Vertical Hold, that incorporated more of her own affinity for the classic style of soul vocals and enabled her to emulate such models as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and Donny Hathaway.

Vertical Hold's records bubbled around the lower end of Billboard magazine's urban music charts for several years, and in 1993 the group released a self-titled CD. One dance number from the album, "Seems You're Much Too Busy," rose into the top 20, and several other singles made an impression, but that wasn't enough to propel the group to an ongoing recording career. Stone's family began to doubt her chances for success. "My mom used to say, 'If God had meant you to make it, then you'd have made it by now," she told the London Daily Telegraph. But Stone continued with her songwriting, numbering among her collaborations those with soul veteran Al Green and modern R&B hitmaker Mary J. Blige.

One collaboration in particular proved both personally and professionally fruitful. Stone contributed songs to the recordings of D'Angelo, whose 1995 debut album Brown Sugar is often credited with kicking off the neo-soul musical phenomenon, and who remains the most significant male representative of the style. Stone placed four tracks on D'Angelo's critically acclaimed 2000 release, Voodoo, which incorporated a host of modern influences into a basic soul context, and she and D'Angelo became romantically involved. The relationship resulted in a child, Michael, but after three years Stone and D'Angelo called it quits.

As Stone assembled material for her own debut release, Black Diamond, she was sometimes dogged by publicity connected to her relationship with D'Angelo, who remains a strong draw for female crowds. In conversation with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch she imitated the question she often faced: "Isn't that the lady that had D'Angelo's baby?" Nevertheless, she and D'Angelo remained friends; he contributed guest vocals on Black Diamond (as did Lenny Kravitz), and he continued to influence Stone musically.

Stone offers her own explanation for the preponderance of female vocalists in the neo-soul movement. "Our men are frustrated," she told the Daily Telegraph. "That's why you hear all that anger [in hip-hop music]. They feel it's the only way they can make themselves heard. We are able to tolerate more, and in any culture women will always take on that motherly role. We caress and comfort our men through song, because we understand how bruised they are."

Released Solo Debut

In her mid-thirties in late 1999, an age when the careers of many urban contemporary vocalists are on a downward trajectory, Stone released her solo debut on the Arista label. Black Diamond was a creative triumph. Gaining momentum over several months, the album, and its lead single, "No More Rain (In This Cloud)" (cowritten by Stone and based on a phrase she had often heard her father say), stayed on the charts for more than 30 weeks. The album spawned a successful tour which, unlike those of Stone's neo-soul rivals Macy Gray and Jill Scott, attracted predominantly African-American crowds. Billboard named Black Diamond its 2000 album of the year.

Part of the reason for the album's success was that it intelligently updated classic soul with samples and other manifestations of hip-hop techniques. Paying homage to such vocalists as Gladys Knight through samples (Knight's "Neither One of Us" is heard in "No More Rain (In This Cloud)"), Stone also drew on the 1970s funk styles of Rufus and other bands (the hard-edged vocals of Rufus frontwoman Chaka Khan are another influence on Stone's style). Yet it was Stone's voice that made the greatest impression. Clearly reflecting her gospel origins, it exuded a raw power of a kind not often heard in the increasingly electronics-dominated world of urban music.

"Real soul singers have used hip-hop beats as a crutch for too long now," Stone told the London Daily Telegraph. "My music stems from the church, and in church there are no limits to where music can take you." Stone emphasized a religious message in her concerts and in the liner notes to Black Diamond. Those notes said that the album represented "a woman's life, all the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, and the joys." After 20 years of trials in the music business, Angie Stone had earned the right to a few joys.

Awards

Received Billboard magazine Album of the Year award for Black Diamond, 2000.

Works

Selected discography

• (with The Sequence) The Sequence, Sugarhill, 1982.
• (with Vertical Hold) Vertical Hold, A&M, 1993.
• Black Diamond, Arista, 2000.

Further Reading

Periodicals

• Billboard, April 8, 2000, p. 27.
• Daily News (New York), April 24, 2000, p. 46.
• Daily Telegraph (London, England), April 6, 2000, p. 27.
• The Observer (London, England), February 27, 2000, p. 10.
• Rolling Stone, March 16, 2000, p. 31.
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 21, 2000, p. C2.
• Washington Post, May 5, 2000, p. C3.

Online

• All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com.

— James M. Manheim

See Angie Stone Lyrics

• Active: '90s, 2000s
• Genres: Rhythm & Blues
• Instrument: Vocals, Songwriter, Keyboards
• Representative Albums: "Mahogany Soul," "Black Diamond," "Stone Love"
• Representative Songs: "Wish I Didn't Miss You," "Brotha," "Life Story"

Biography

A singer, MC, self-taught keyboardist, and prolific songwriter, Angie Stone's first claim to fame was her membership in the Sequence, an all-female trio that recorded for pioneering hip-hop label Sugar Hill, beginning with the 1979 single "Funk You Up." Several years later, she re-emerged as the lead vocalist for Vertical Hold, where she scored with the smooth urban dance track "Seems You're Much Too Busy," a Top 40 R&B hit during the summer of 1993 that led to very productive solo career. With the release of her 1999 solo debut, she became one of neo-soul's leading lights, providing sharp insight into romantic relationships with her smoky yet upfront voice.

Stone, a native of Columbia, SC, 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 -- "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 was working with futuristic rappers Mantronix and rocker Lenny Kravitz and formed the classy R&B trio Vertical Hold, who first charted with the Criminal single "Summertime." Besides "Seems You're Much Too Busy," the group's self-titled A&M album spawned another charting single, "ASAP." 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. 2004's Stone Love fared just as well commercially, yet she 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, "Baby" and "Sometimes." Unexpected, a second Stax release, followed two years later. Also an occasional actor, she appeared in a handful of movies, including The Fighting Temptations and Pastor Brown, as well as the television programs Moesha, Girlfriends, and Lincoln Heights. ~ Ed Hogan & Andy Kellman, All Music Guide

Black Diamond Buy this CD	Black Diamond Buy this CD	Stone Hits Live: the Very Best of Angie Stone [DVD 2005] Buy this CD	Art of Love & War Buy this CD	Art of Love & War Buy this CD
Mahogany Soul Buy this CD	Stone Hits Live: The Very Best of Angie Stone [DVD 2006] Buy this CD	Stone Hits: The Very Best of Angie Stone Buy this CD	Wish I Didn't Miss You [German CD] Buy this CD	Stone Love [Bonus Track] Buy this CD

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