Angie Stone, Grammy-nominated soul singer, dies in car crash at 63

Angie Stone, the R&B and neo-soul singer behind songs like the hit “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” has died.

The musician was killed in a traffic accident in Montgomery, Ala., on Saturday, Entertainment Weekly has confirmed. She was 63.

Stone was returning to Atlanta from a gig in Alabama with her band when her cargo van flipped over and was subsequently hit by a big rig, said music producer Walter Millsap III. She was scheduled to perform at a basketball tournament for the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association in Baltimore later on Saturday.

Everyone else in the vehicle survived.

Born Angela Brown in Columbia, S.C., in 1961, Stone began her singing career with gospel performances at First Nazareth Baptist Church. 

At age 16, she joined forces with high school friends Cheryl “the Pearl” Cook and Gwendolyn “Blondie” Chisolm to form the hip-hop trio the Sequence. The group signed with Sugar Hill Records, releasing their hit single “Funk You Up” in 1979 (the song was later sampled on “Keep Their Heads Ringin'” by Dr. Dre) and three albums in the early 1980s.

Stone later joined another trio, Vertical Hold, releasing the albums A Matter of Time and Head First in the mid-1990s. She also recorded one album with the group Devox, and sang backing vocals on 5, the 1998 album from Lenny Kravitz, the cousin of Devox member Gerry DeVeaux. 

Stone released her debut solo album, Black Diamond, in 1999. The LP reached the Top 10 of Billboard‘s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and was certified gold. Its biggest single, “No More Rain (In This Cloud),” hit No. 1 on the Adult R&B Songs chart.

The singer also co-wrote the track “Jonz in My Bonz” with D’Angelo for his 1995 debut album, Brown Sugar, and later toured with him as a backing vocalist and co-wrote four songs for his seminal 2000 album, Voodoo. Stone was in a relationship with D’Angelo in the ’90s, and the couple had a son, Michael, together in 1998.

Stone’s second solo album, Mahogany Soul, was released in 2001 and featured collaborations with Alicia Keys, Eve, Swizz Beatz, Carvin & Ivan, and Raphael Saadiq. It contained the hit single “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” which would become her most famous song, and reached No. 4 on Billboard‘s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. The track “More Than a Woman,” which was a duet with Joe, scored Stone a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals.

Stone’s third solo album, Stone Love, came out in 2005, and featured contributions from Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg, Anthony Hamilton, and more. The song “U-Haul,” which was co-written by Elliott, earned Stone a Grammy nod for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.

Her fourth album, The Art of Love & War, reached higher than any of her previous efforts on the American Billboard charts, topping the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and hitting No. 11 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Its lead single, a duet with Betty Wright called “Baby,” snatched Stone her third Grammy nom, for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals.

Stone went on to release six more solo albums, including 2009’s Unexpected, which confronted the death of her father, and 2015’s Dream, which reteamed her with Stone Love producer Walter Millsap III. Her most recent album, Love Language, was released in 2023.

Stone also appeared in several movies and TV shows, beginning with the 2002 Rob Schneider comedy The Hot Chick. She wrote the theme song for the sitcom Girlfriends and guest-starred on an episode in the show’s third season, and also appeared on reality shows like Celebrity Fit Club and Celebrity Wife Swap. Stone also acted on stage on occasion, playing Big Mama Morton in Chicago on Broadway in 2003.

The singer is survived by her two children, Diamond and Michael.