Angela Laverne Brown, known professionally as Angie Stone, was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She was born on December 18, 1961 in Columbia, South Carolina, where she began singing gospel music at First Nazareth Baptist Church, under the leadership of Reverend Blakely N. Scott. Her father, a member of a local gospel quartet, took Stone to see performances by gospel artists such as the Singing Angels and the Gospel Keynotes.
Stone rose to fame in the late 1970s as member of the hip hop trio the Sequence. In the early 1990s, she became a member of the R&B trio Vertical Hold. She then signed with Arista Records to release her debut solo album Black Diamond (1999), which received gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and spawned the single "No More Rain (In This Cloud)".
After transitioning to J Records, she released her second album, Mahogany Soul (2001), which spawned the hit single "Wish I Didn't Miss You". It was followed by Stone Love (2004) and The Art of Love & War (2007), her first number-one album on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Stone ventured into acting in the 2000s, making her film debut in the 2002 comedy film The Hot Chick, and her stage debut in 2003, in the role of Big Mama Morton in the Broadway musical Chicago. She has since appeared in supporting roles in films and television series as well as several musical productions, including VH1's Celebrity Fit Club and TV One's R&B Divas, and movies such as The Fighting Temptations (2003), Pastor Brown (2009), and School Gyrls (2010).
Stone was nominated for three Grammy Awards and won two Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. In 2021, she received the Soul Music Icon Award at the Black Music Honors. In 2024, she was a featured vocalist on Damon Little's "No Stressing", which peaked at #1 on Billboard's Gospel Airplay chart.
Stone was killed in a car crash in Montgomery, Alabama on March 1, 2025. Stone and her band members were traveling to Atlanta following a concert in Mobile, Alabama, when their Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van was involved in a vehicle collision. She was 63 years old.
