Angie Stone

In a career spanning more than four decades, singer and songwriter Angie Stone has made her mark on hip-hop, R&B, and especially the subgenre of neo-soul. • Growing up in South Carolina, Stone sang gospel music at the First Nazareth Baptist Church. • In the late ’70s, she formed the rap trio The Sequence, which signed to Sugar Hill Records. Their 1979 single “Funk You Up” became the first rap hit by a female group. The song was interpolated in Dr. Dre’s 1995 hit “Keep Their Heads Ringin’”. • After working with the rap group Mantronix, she became the lead singer of the R&B group Vertical Hold in the early ’90s. They released two albums before splitting up. • In 1996, Stone formed the group Devox with Gerry DeVaus (Lenny Kravitz’s cousin) and Charlie Mole. They released one album together, 1996’s Devox featuring Angie B. Stone. • After serving as a backing vocalist for Lenny Kravitz’s 1998 album 5, Stone signed with Arista and released her solo debut album, Black Diamond, in 1999. • In 2006, Stone signed with the legendary (and recently reactivated) soul label Stax and released two albums: 2007’s The Art of Love (No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B chart) and 2009’s Unexpected. • Her 2016 album Covered in Soul features renditions of popular songs by Neil Diamond, Phil Collins, Bob Marley and others. • Stone has also dabbled in acting, appearing in films like The Hot Chick (2002) and The Fighting Temptations (2003) and TV series like Girlfriends, for which she recorded the theme song.