This trio girl group featured
unique and original acts such as Angie B (Angie Stone), Blondie
(Gwendolyn Chisholm) and Cheryl the Pearl (Cheryl Cook). The three
lady’s were the first female rap group to release material from
Grandmaster Flash’ label, in New York called the Sugar Hill Records.
The group received moderate success with singles like ‘Funk You Up’, a
collaboration produced by Mantronix. This 1979 hit had many lyrics
from a Sugar Hill Gang track ‘8th Wonder’, which they repeated through
out on the Doug Wimbish type bass line. With Stone’s inner confident
and communication skills, this diva was straight away accepted in the
hectic music business and the unpredictable soul music world. After
her period with The Sequence, she formed another trio called Vertical
Hold, before this she ventured into the more musicianship side of
things. Here Angie would play saxophone and do backing vocals for
Lenny Kravitz. In the 90’s Vertical Hold were a solid hip-hop/R&B
female group, but had an extremely soulful, groovy style, and dress
sense. They released a song entitled ‘Seems you’re Much Too Busy’, and
it did pretty well, in 1993. The album ‘Sugar Hill Presents the
Sequence’ had a hip-hop party type vibe, but also the soul tip was
included due to the artist’s soul wrenching singing. Track’s such
as ‘We Don’t Rap the Rap’, has a unique lyrical style, were the
females express topics on unwanted pregnancy. ‘Funk a Doodle Rock
Jam’, sounds as if it has an impressive riff through out the
song, ‘Funky Sound’ is possibly the first hip-hop track to feature a
George Clinton sample from his song ‘Give Up The Funk’. Nevertheless,
Angie lays her talent down impressively and professionally, as usual.
There is a ballad on the album called ‘The Time we’re alone’, and
other’s, it was obvious that this trio had a lot of talent, they
worked great together, and the music sounded brilliant. Sylvia
Robinson contributed her production talents to this project, who also
helped a group called Spoonie Gee on a hit ‘Monster Jam’. The Sequence
made two other albums, which featured a lot of cool tracks. The band
on these LP’s was Skip McDonald (guitar), Reggie Griffin and Dwain
Mitchell (keyboards), Dennis Chambers and S. Powell (drums), Eddie
Fletcher (percussion), and some others like horn section players etc.
Vertical Hold released a contemporary urban sounding album ‘A Matter
of Time’. There are many tracks that sound like a Chaka Khan or Angela
Winbush tune. There is a great Isley Brothers cover called ‘Don’t Say
Goodnight (It’s Time for Love)’, but other than that one sample,
everything is written by Angie Stone. Lenny Kravitz is included on
this record, on guitar on ‘Magic Carpet Ride’, but there is only one
track with rapping on this record, ‘You Got Something (I Want)’. The
next Vertical Hold album is ‘Head First’, in 1995. This is where
D’Angelo comes into Angie’s life, and soon has a child together.
However, he musically contributes on the song ‘Pray’, also co-writing
it. Steve Hurley, Itaal Shur are the other guys that help out on this
Angie Stone CD. The other female vocalists are great but to me Angie
stands out as the better vocalist. After all this collaborating, group
experiences in the studio as trio recordings, Angie was about ready to
record a solo debut album, which she would call ‘Black Diamond’, as
I’ve mentioned before. ‘Black Diamond’ has musicians such as Chalmers
Alford, Joe Belamaati, D’Angelo, Iran, Jonas Krag, Lenny Kravitz,
Aaron Lyles, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, Joe Quindy, Rex Rideout and Craig
Ross. ‘Bone 2 Pic (Wit U)’, was produced by the incredible Ali Shaheed
Muhammed, ‘Love Junkie’, ‘Everyday’ and the best interlude
ever, ‘Black Diamonds & Blue Pearls’. Are the special attributions
from the CD, Soundtracks were the next Angie Stone career make, and
she created a song in 2000 called ‘Slippery Shoes’ for the Bamboozled
soundtrack. More Angie Stone albums were coming our way!
With ‘Mahogany Soul’ in 2001 and ‘Stone Love’ in 2004. Producers
include on the 2001 release are Eran Tabib ‘Soul Insurance’, Raphael
Saadiq ‘Brotha’ (single), Ivan Matias and Andrea Martin, Warryn
Campbell, Ali Shaheed Muhammed and Aaron Freedom Lyles. The remix
of ‘Brotha’ featured Eve and Alicia Keys, which is a cool, radio
friendly track on the end part of the record. ‘Stone Love’ stepped her
down the inspirational ladder I’m afraid on this one, Angie spoke of
topics that weren’t really inspiring and the music was far too
commercially orientated. Missy Elliot served as producer on ‘U-
Haul’, ‘You Don’t Love Me’ steals a sample of a Curtis Mayfield
record, ‘You’re Gonna Get It’, is based on the Delfonics track ‘La La
Means I Love You’, and rappers like Snoop Dogg appear on single ‘I
Wanna Thank You’, so over all, me being a true soul obsessive, it
wasn’t my thing. I still am proud to own the Angie Stone record, but
the sound I just didn’t dig. Betty Wright, Floetry, Anthony Hamilton
all feature as guests on this release. Over all Angie Stone has had a
long, strong, and exciting musical career, that I’m sure will still
continue to have it’s twists and turns. That’s what has captivated me
about this unique diva, she is business minded, and you never know
what she is going to do next. In 2004/2005 Angie Stone was going to
release an album out called ‘A Diary Of A Soul Singer’, or something
similar to that, but Alicia Keys would release her ‘A Diary Of Alicia
Keys’, so unfortunately there was no sign of it. Let’s hope that a
live Angie Stone album is heading our way!
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