Rating: NNN
The quick-sale, repackaged vibe of a best-of just doesn’t fit an artist like Angie Stone. Although the smoky South Carolina singer is well known and makes strong, pure albums, she’s never had that many actual “hits,” and her three albums work better as complete thoughts, not all crushed together in Clive Davis’s J Records blender. But as a primer to her stuff (grumble), this isn’t a bad list. In that context, some of her best-loved tracks – Brotha, I Wanna Thank Ya, and Pissed Off – seem even more essentially Angie. And you can’t say the disc doesn’t go out with some TNT: the horn-driven Brotha Part II featuring Alicia Keys and Eve is so dead-cold funky it’ll make you say “unnngh” involuntarily.
