Stone died in a car crash on her way from Montgomery, Alabama to Atlanta early Saturday morning. A rep for the singer confirmed to Variety that she was coming from a show with her band members when her Sprinter was struck by an 18-wheeler and flipped three times. Stone was the only person who died in the accident.
“Never in a million years did we ever expect to get this horrible news,” said Stone’s children, Diamond Stone and Michael Archer, in a joint statement. “Our mom is and will always be our everything. We are still trying to process and are completely heartbroken.”
The Grammy-nominated musician was best known for her 2001 hit “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” a quiet storm soul record carried by her husky, rich vocals and a prominent sample of the O’Jays’ “Backstabbers.” Throughout her career, she released 10 solo albums and was nominated for three Grammys, including best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocals in 2003 and best female R&B vocal performance the following year
Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Stone got her start in music at 16 as one-third of the Sequence, the first female hip-hop trio signed to Sugar Hill Records. They released several albums but were most notably known for “Funk You Up,” the 1979 single that went on to become a regularly sampled song in contemporary music including Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” and Erykah Badu’s “Love of My Life Worldwide.”
After the Sequence disbanded, Stone joined the group Vertical Hold to release two albums in the mid-1990s. In the years that followed, she contributed songwriting to D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar” and “Voodoo,” and sang backup on his tour.She signed to J Records in the late 1990s, embarking on her solo career with her debut album “Black Diamond” in 1999. As a solo singer, Stone reached prominence as one of the core figures in the neo-soul movement. She released her breakthrough sophomore album “Mahogany Soul” in 2001, spawning the hits “Brotha” and “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” plus a remix of the latter that hit No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs. While “Mahogany Soul” was her biggest international solo record, her subsequent albums — “Stone Love” (2004) and “The Art of Love & War” (2007) — pushed her higher up the charts, and she continued to release records over the years up until 2023’s “Love Language.”Outside of music, Stone appeared on VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club” and “R&B Divas: Atlanta,” and acted in numerous films including “The Hot Chick” and “The Fighting Temptations.” Last year, she was inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Stone is survived by her Diamond, Michael and her grandchildren.
