Black Music Month: Angie Stone

A true pioneer of Soul and Hip Hop, Angie Stone's voice and songwriting left an indelible mark on R&B.

Collaborating with legends and mentoring new voices, she was inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2024. 

Tragically, she passed in a car accident in March 2025, but her legacy continues to inspire.

Bri Wood breaks down Angie's life and legacy. 

Listen now!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Celebrating Black Music Month on the Black Information Network, honoring
the sounds that have shaped our culture. I'm bree would
Angie Stone born Angela Laverne Brown in Columbia, South Carolina
was a pioneering American singer, songwriter, rapper, and actress whose
career began in the late nineteen seventies with the groundbreaking
female hip hop group The Sequence. She later found success

(00:20):
in R and B with a group Vertical Holds, before
launching a solo career that helped defind the neo soul genre.
Her debut album, Black Diamond in nineteen ninety nine and
two thousand and one follow up Mahogany Soul featured hits
like No More Rain and Wish I Didn't Miss You.
Stone also acted in films, television shows, and reality TV,
earning multiple award nominations and accolades, including induction into the

(00:41):
Women's Songwriters Hall of Fame. Angie Stone broke barriers in
shaped music across decades. She made history with The Sequins,
one of the first off female rap groups, whose nineteen
seventy nine hit Funk You Up became a hip hop classic. Later,
she helped pioneer Neil Soul blending gospel, funk and soul
and a sound and influenced artists like Erica By and DiAngelo.
Stone also wrote for others, performed the theme for the

(01:03):
hit TV show Girlfriends, and collaborated with Prince Alicia Keys
and Lenny Kravitz. A cultural icon and advocate for black
women in music, she recently revealed that Universal Music Group
had allegedly collected her royalties for decades without her knowledge.
While recovering from a health crisis, she and her team
uncover the issue. Her story is a powerful reminder of
the need for artists to protect their rights. Angie Stone

(01:26):
wasn't just active on the mic. She was actively involved
in community work and philanthropy. The multi award winning songstress
founded Angel Stripes the Angie Stone Foundation, a national nonprofit
dedicated to fostering community connections and promoting the arts. The
foundation highlighted the importance of neighborly relationships and spoke out
against efforts to restrict voting rights. Her commitment to giving
back reflected her belief that the soul of a community

(01:48):
lies in its people. Through Angel Stripes, she supported initiatives
that uplifted underserved communities, especially through creative expression and civic engagement.
She also ventured into entrepreneurship, selling merch and her own
line of barber Iq and Hot Sauce under the Aunti
Angie's Kitchen brand. Items can still be purchased at auntiangi
dot com held it Down Bailsga. Before she was a

(02:09):
sole legend, Angie Stone was a young girl growing up
in Columbia, South Carolina, an only child, where her real
education began not in a classroom, but in the church.
Her father sang in a local gospel quartet, and Angie
found her voice in the choir guided by Reverend Blakely
and Scott, a First Nazareth Baptist church. That gospel foundation
shaped her sound deeply rooted in faith. Though she didn't

(02:29):
pursue college, her musical training was immersive and spiritual. It's
what gave her the power to blend gospel, soul and
hip hop into something timeless. Stone received an honorary doctorate
in theology from Next Dimension University in Rancho Cucamonga, California
in twenty seventeen, and was inducted as an honorary member
of Zeta Phi Betas Arority Incorporated in July twenty twenty four.
We lost Angie Stone on March first, twenty twenty five,

(02:51):
at the age of sixty three. She died in a
rollover car crash while traveling with her band from Mobile,
Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia. Undoubtedly, her legacy will live on
through her songs, her spirit, and the countless lives she touched,
I checked out, and I don't want June is Black

(03:11):
music Month. We honor the legends, uplift the new voices,
and turn the volume up on history. Discover more stories
behind the music at BI n needs dot com.