By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Angie Stone, a veteran soul and R&B singer, has died at 63 after a Sprinter van accident in Alabama.
Stone was involved in a crash around 4 a.m. local time Saturday while driving to Atlanta from Alabama, Walter Millsap III of Conjunction Entertainment said.
She had performed in Montgomery on Friday night and was scheduled to travel to Baltimore for a halftime performance at the CIAA Conference.
Stone’s close friend and former bandmate, Gwendolyn “Blondie” Chisolm of The Sequence, identified her body at a Montgomery hospital.
Stone found a sweet spot in the early 2000s as neo-soul begin to dominate the R&B landscape with the emergence of singers like Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Maxwell and D’Angelo.
Her 2001 album “Mahagony Soul” reached No. 22 on the Billboard 200, while 2007’s “The Art Of Love & War” peaked at No. 11.
The church-grown singer was born in Columbia, South Carolina. She helped form The Sequence, the first all-female group on the hip-hop trailblazing imprint Sugar Hill Records, becoming one of the first female groups to record a rap song.
The group recorded “Funk You Up,”which has been sampled by numerous artists, including Dr. Dre.
After finding success in the early 1980s, Stone later joined the trio Vertical Hold before launching her solo career.
A Soul Train Lady of Soul winner, Stone went on to showcase her acting chops with film roles in “The Hot Chick” starring Rob Schneider, “The Fighting Temptations” which starred Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé, and “Ride Along” led by Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.
She also hit the Broadway stage as Big Mama Morton in “Chicago,” and she showcased her vulnerability on the reality TV shows “Celebrity Fit Club” and “R&B Divas: Atlanta.”