Latest news with #KeepTheirHeadsRingin
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Grammy Award nominated Columbia native killed in crash, officials say
Columbia native Angie Stone, a Grammy Award nominated neo-soul musical star, was killed Saturday in a crash, officials said. The 63-year-old Stone's death was confirmed by music producer Walter Millsap III, who told The Associated Press that Stone had been traveling in a van to Atlanta after a concert when it 'flipped over and was subsequently hit by a big rig.' 'The Alabama Highway Patrol said in a news release that the 2021 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van turned over on Interstate 65 about 4:25 a.m. Saturday before being hit by a 2021 Freightliner Cascadia truck driven by a 33-year-old man from Texas,' according to The AP. Stone died at the scene, which was about 5 miles south of Montgomery. Millsap told The AP that the eight other people who were in the van survived. Further information on their conditions was not available. 'My heart breaks for Angie Stone and her family,' former South Carolina state representative and CNN commentator Bakari Sellers said on social media. 'May she rest in power. She meant so much to this community and is a true icon.' Stone was scheduled to perform at the halftime show of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association men's championship basketball game Saturday in Baltimore, officials with the association said in a statement. 'We are heartbroken by the tragic and sudden passing of Angie Stone, an award-winning singer, a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., a community activist, role model, and mother whose soulful artistry and spirit made an indelible mark on her community, our nation, and the world,' CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams-Parker said in the statement. Stone's journey began as Angela Laverne Brown when she was born in 1961 in Columbia, where she grew up and went from singing in church to forming the early hip-hop trio the Sequence, the Los Angeles Times reported. She was a member of the congregation at First Nazareth Baptist Church and her alma mater was C.A. Johnson High School, where she received an honor in 2015. Stone later moved to New York where she signed a recording contract with Sugar Hill Records and the Sequence, one of rap's first female groups, had a hit with 1979's 'Funk You Up,' which Dr. Dre later sampled for his 'Keep Their Heads Ringin,' ' according to the Los Angeles Times. 'I was self-taught. I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was ambitious,' Stone said during a 2020 interview on 'The Breakfast Club.' Stone later joined another musical trio, Vertical Hold, before launching her solo career, the AP reported. Around that same time, she also wrote songs for and performed with Lenny Kravitz, Mary J. Blige and D'Angelo, the latter who she had a romantic relationship with and they had a son in 1998, according to the Los Angeles Times. Stone is survived by her two children, daughter Diamond and son Michael D'Angelo Archer II, US Weekly reported. During Stone's career as a solo artist she had hits with singles 'No More Rain,' 'Wish I Didn't Miss You,' 'More Than a Woman,' and 'U-Haul,'among other songs. The latter two were both nominated for Grammy Awards. She had gold records with her 1999 debut album 'Black Diamond' and the 2001 follow up 'Mahogany Soul,' which have combined for more than a million sales, according to 'My music is as close to real soul music as you're going to get. Everything else is watered down,' Stone told The State in 2015. Stone was also a prolific actress, appearing in a combined 40 movies and TV shows, according to IMDB. 'Angie Stone's voice and spirit will live on forever in the hearts of those she touched,' her publicist Yvonne Forbes told CNN. 'I've been in the game for 50 years. My first solo album is 25 years old. I've put in a lot of work over the years,' Stone said in a Jan. 13 Instagram post. 'God gave me this gift and I have shared it with the world.'
The Guardian
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Soul singer Angie Stone dies in a car crash at 63
Singer Angie Stone, known for her hit Wish I Didn't Miss You, has died at the age of 63. A representative for the singer confirmed to Variety that Stone was killed in a car crash in Montgomery, Alabama. She had reportedly been on her way home from a show and was the only person who died in the crash. Her daughter Diamond Stone wrote online: 'My mommy is gone.' Stone has been a founding member of groundbreaking female hip-hop trio the Sequence in the late 70s at the age of 16. They scored a hit with Funk You Up, a song that was later sampled by Dr Drew for his single Keep Their Heads Ringin and Bruno Mars in Uptown Funk. 'I think that being the first female rap group to actually come out and have an authentic original rap record is an accomplishment that no one else has been able to top,' she said in 2023. After the group disbanded in the mid-80s, Stone worked as a vocalist for Vertical Hold and then Devox before she later provided songwriting credits to D'Angelo for his first two studio albums. She was also a backing vocalist for the singer on tour before providing vocals for Lenny Kravitz on his album 5 in 1998. In 1999, Stone released her first solo album, Black Diamond, which contained the hits No More Rain (In This Cloud) and Life Story. She went on to record the theme to the hit sitcom Girlfriends in 2000 and released her second album, Mahogany Soul, the following year. That album featured the hit Wish I Didn't Miss You, which became her biggest international success. Her third album, Stone Love, featured the song I Wanna Thank Ya with Snoop Dogg, which became a big hit in Europe. The video also featured a young Idris Elba. Stone went on to record a further seven albums, the most recent of which was 2023's Love Language, which featured Musiq Soulchild and Stone's son Swayvo Twain. She was nominated for three Grammys in her career and also wrote songs for Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq. 'There is a deep sad feeling that as a songwriter – something such a gift – you never get acknowledged for it,' she said in 2011. 'People think that's how I eat because I make records but I make far more money as songwriter than from being a singer.' Stone also worked as an actor, with roles in big screen comedies like The Hot Chick and The Fighting Temptations and on stage in Chicago playing Big Mama Morton.
