Angie Stone and D’Angelo likely will never work together again.
The two artists were among the short list of acts that helped push Neo-Soul music to be recognized by mainstream listeners in the 1990s.
In a recent interview, Stone discussed how pivotal a role she played in helping the Virginia native finish his debut album, “Brown Sugar,” which helped catapult him to stardom, while simultaneously driving a wedge between them.
The “Brotha” vocalist and D’Angelo are also past lovers who dated for a few years in the mid-’90s. They share a son, Michael D’Angelo Archer II, who was born in 1998. According to Stone, pride impacted their relationship, and has remained the cause of their inability to reconnect musically.
“After I began to get the accolades for helping him to get it done, something he couldn’t get finished, after I began to get the accolades, it turned into a love-hate relationship. ‘I could have did this without her, I, I, I,’ ” recalled Stone in an interview with VladTV.
She said she has been disappointed by the way in which she has been sidelined as his star rose.
“I have been let down. I have watched the world basically spin on his axle and turn its back on me because of D’Angelo. Because their love and desire was so great for him that they were able to spin on me pretty much,” claimed the three-time Grammy nominee.
Stone added that D’angleo’s growing sex appeal with female fans and those in the industry further escalated the demise of any semblance of romantic or professional relationship they shared.
The singer explained, “The minute he decided to become a sex symbol, or the industry cultivated a sex symbol, I became dog meat to him. And that — four years prior to that we was the best of friends — but after that it was, ‘She too old for him, she this…’ “
Stone said, “I wasn’t too old for him when I was helping him get through the studio work, I wasn’t old when I was trying to get them albums finished, I wasn’t old when I was writing them hits with him. I wasn’t none of that. It was only after he had arrived, it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s get rid of her; she’s dead weight now. And that’s what I literally believe has happened.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the 61-year-old shared that D’Angelo ‘would be a lot further today’ had they continued working together.
“His pride won’t allow him to do that because he doesn’t want to share the credit,” she continued. “He doesn’t want it to look like, ‘What if I get with her and we win? Then it’s going to look like she did it.’ I mean the writings on the wall, but aye if you want to roll like that, I ain’t mad at you. That’s not my spirit. My spirit is we got the winning element. God gave us that, you didn’t give me that, God gave us that.”
The “Mahogany Soul” artist said they should both be able to put their differences aside and “work on our God=given craft,” but that simply is not reality.
“But his pride will not allow him to go there, and it’s sad. But the industry created that energy, and because they created it they have to now suffer and wait for the kind of music that we created. It will never happen because the we factor is not there,” she said. “It saddens me because I can honestly tell you I don’t care how major feel about them, there’s probably not too many men that I know of as talented as he is.”
Angie Stone has released eight studio albums and three Grammy-nominated singles. As for D’Angelo, he has three albums and has won four Grammys, including two for Best R&B Album.