Angie Stone tragically and suddenly died in a car accident earlier this month, and the music community has been shaken up ever since. At her funeral, held this week, Tyler Perry made a powerfully emotional speech in her memory.
The 55-year-old actor and filmmaker opened his remarks by quoting the soul singer’s record “No More Rain (In This Cloud).” Perry used the lyric “In time, it gets a little better” to extend his well wishes to her family and recalled a time when she’d requested he come on stage for “Brotha” at one of her shows.
The climax of his eulogy, though, was when he called out promoters and record labels for not properly compensating her. “Women like Angie Stone who’s been in the business all these years, you’re gonna forget about what she did? All of the people that she put on and helped? See, you got to go through something to write a song like ’20 Dollars,’” he said.
As Tyler Perry described the depths Stone had had to go to live, his volume steadily rose, and he grew visibly frustrated, saying, “Y’all got to forgive me because I’m angry at the way she was treated. I did not know all the things she was going through… To think that this woman was in the business for all of these years. See, there’s a difference between performing because you want to and performing because you have to. All of those years, all of those songs, all of that money that was owed to her, where is it? It’s wrong!”
On the day Stone passed, Perry revealed just how much she’d inspired him; “When I write a movie, I usually choose an artist to listen to that helps me see the world I’m creating. I’ve always loved Angie and her music, and there’s one song in particular that I couldn’t get out of my head while writing Straw,” he said. “I just talked to my team about reaching out to her to clear the song. It’s called ’20 Dollars.’ Listen to it, it’s so soulful and it speaks to so many of our upbringings and struggles. She was preaching.”
Stone passed away on March 1 from injuries sustained in a car accident as she was driving from Montgomery, Ala., to Baltimore to perform the 2025 CIAA Tournament in Baltimore. She’d had a long career but she didn’t stop working, releasing her latest album Love Language in May 2023. Stone was also nominated for three Grammys.
Leave a comment