Angie Stone: Unexpected Experience

I was very excited to find out a couple of days after i wrote this post about Angie Stone’s new release that she would be here in Chicago for Dedry’s 48th Music Experience.

Last night was one of those Monday nights where I just really wanted to be home, relaxing but I went out because like I said, I was very excited to see her.

OK.

Sidebar: I have a few pet peeves..{surprise…surprise}

One of them is when people don’t treat other folks time respectfully.

So an event starting over an hour late, actually an hour and about 28 minutes late is high on my violation list.

And as you can see from my tweet I was about to walk out but thankfully the lights dimmed right after I wrote that.

Of course I was still in a bit of a foul mood at that point so all I could do was be hopeful that something special was going to happen to lessen my “pississity”.

And well…

IT DID!

She came out, she was very humble (although she did not apologize for being late ;@().

She talked about losing her Dad earlier this year and its impact. About her childhood and her mother and how proud she was to be able to retire her parents when she was 24.

I also learned so much about her career and health.

Did you know she is 47 years old and has been in the business since 1979?

She plays multiple instruments and played sax for Lenny Kravitz on his Let Love Rule tour.

That she suffered from Sarcoidosis that almost made her go blind after being exposed to a chemical spill and being misdiagnosed.

Before this she as 125lbs but was put on Prednisone for 12 years, which because of the effects that it had on her caused her to not be able to workout and thus she gained a lot of weight.

She ended up with congestive heart failure. Developed diabetes. But today she has no symptoms of Sarcoidosis

She credits God and purified alkaline water among other things for her healing and weight loss.

She has a really fun sense of humor. She talked about her old afro and how people always tell her they miss it. She said “I don’t. A girl wants to mix it up”.

She also talked about how because the afro wig was so big., how it made her feel ever bigger than she was. She said that she would look in the mirror and cry.

She commented on being classified as a NeoSoul artist. She basically said that she has been doing this for 30 years and while she doesn’t have a problem with the category, she prefers not to be limited to it.

She talked a bit about being with D’Angelo and how they worked together.

She also told the story of how her hit “No Rain” came to be. Growing up she would ask her Dad for money and he would tell her “There’s no more rain in this cloud”.

And so one day, she was waiting for Meshell Ndegeocello & D’Angelo to show up at the studio and to busy herself, she started messing around with some tunes and ta da. She said she thanks them for not showing up that day becase it was her biggest hit.

She said that she wrote “Brotha” because “Scrubs” from TLC was out and everybody just seemed so down on black men and she wanted to put something positive out there for them.

She has written song after song for other artists and and she was in the groups The Sequence & Vertical Hold and went by the name Angie B (her maiden name is Brown) back in the day.

Who remembers “Funk You Up”? It had that chorus..”ring, ding, dong, ring da ding, ding ding dong.” That was Sequence.

Here is a video of The Sequence doing “Love Changes”

Here she is on a Vertical Hold cover..

And here they are performing their hit “Seems Your Much Too Busy”..which freaked everybody out when they found out it was Angie.

You know how it is when you know a an old school group’s song and all the lyrics but just never really knew the names of the individual artists.

Here are a couple of my blurry pix. Of course I did not have my real camera, so cell phone it was and it sucks because as you can see, she was right in front of me.

All in all it turned out to be a really cool night. Angie was in great voice and even greater spirit.

Unexpected is a must have.

Check out this preview from The Music Experience.

The first song is called “Why is it”. It and the one titled “Maybe” will do you in!

Love it!