Angie Stone, pictured on the 2009 Soul Practice Awards in Atlanta, died in a automotive accident on Saturday.
Gregory Smith/AP
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Gregory Smith/AP
The music world and saddened followers are mourning the sudden lack of Angie Stone. The Grammy-nominated R&B singer died Saturday morning in a automotive crash in Montgomery, Ala. She was 63.
Stone’s sultry voice resonated with a number of generations. She first entered the music scene professionally within the late Nineteen Seventies as a member of the hip-hop trio The Sequence. The group was one of many first all-female teams to launch a rap single, with “Funk You Up” in 1979. Stone can also be remembered for her vocals as a part of the R&B group Vertical Maintain within the early Nineteen Nineties.
Stone earned the next of a brand new technology of followers in the course of the emergence of the neo-soul period of the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s with standard hits like “No Extra Rain” and “Want I Did not Miss You.” Neo-soul combines up to date R&B and soul with different genres, together with hip-hop and jazz. Stone’s reputation grew alongside different standard neo-soul artists resembling Erykah Badu and Musiq Soulchild.
Her two youngsters expressed shock over her surprising demise, in a joint assertion Stone’s publicist shared with NPR on Sunday.
“By no means in 1,000,000 years did we ever anticipate to get this horrible information. Our mother is and can all the time be our the whole lot,” stated her daughter, Diamond Stone, and her son, Michael Archer, who Stone shared with singer-songwriter D’Angelo. “We’re nonetheless making an attempt to course of and are utterly heartbroken.”
Stone, a local of Columbia, S.C., started singing gospel music as a baby in church, in response to a biography shared by her publicist. Her father would additionally take her to see gospel artists carry out. Rising up, she wrote poetry and used her cash saved from odd jobs to document demos at a neighborhood studio.
The singer’s profitable solo profession started after her time with The Sequence and Vertical Maintain. The latter group reached the R&B Prime 40 with “Appears You are A lot Too Busy” in 1993.
Stone signed with Arista Data as a solo artist and launched her first album, Black Diamond, in 1999, which was licensed gold. The album received her two Soul Practice Woman of Soul Awards. Stone’s second album Mahogany Soul, launched in 2001, was additionally licensed gold. She obtained her first of three profession Grammy nominations for the album Extra Than a Lady. Her music received many extra accolades and recognition. She additionally appeared in a number of motion pictures and TV reveals, together with the 2003 movie The Preventing Temptations and the sitcom Girlfriends. Stone additionally sang the theme tune to Girlfriends.
In accordance with Stone’s label SRG/ILS, Stone was touring again to Atlanta after a efficiency the earlier evening in Cellular, Ala., when her van was hit by a semi-truck. Stone, who was a passenger joined by different musicians, was the one one who was killed.
“We’re really devastated at this surprising and unlucky tragedy, and there are merely no phrases to precise how we really feel,” stated Stone’s longtime supervisor Walter Millsap III in a press release.
“I couldn’t consider it after I obtained the decision that essentially the most stunning soul is now gone,” stated Claude Villani, CEO of SRG/ILS group. “I’m utterly heartbroken.”
Stone was because of carry out at halftime for a school basketball championship recreation in Baltimore hours after the crash, stated the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Affiliation (CIAA). Spectators noticed a second of silence on the recreation.
“We’re heartbroken by the tragic and sudden passing of Angie Stone, an award-winning singer, a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., a group activist, position mannequin, and mom whose soulful artistry and spirit made an indelible mark on her group, our nation, and the world. She used her unbelievable expertise, ardour, and presence to encourage and contact us with power and hope,” stated CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams-Parker in a press release.
In a video put up to Instagram on February 17, Stone expressed pleasure over the scheduled performances in Alabama and Baltimore, in addition to numerous upcoming excursions and initiatives.
“Loads of stuff is happening that I do not wish to simply set free the bag simply but, however you’ll be able to see that there is a massive grin on my face,” Stone stated. “It is a variety of issues happening, so far as movie, tv, excursions, artists, songwriting.”
Along with her two youngsters, she is survived by two grandchildren.
