So you have to think fast and move fast – if you don’t, you’re gonna get screwed. “Unlike someone who goes to college and has a college mentality, your college is the industry. Their first single, “Funky Right on Up”, went gold within 30 days, and Stone was catapulted into a dizzying schedule of touring, recording and promotional duties.”I grew up with the industry, and, believe me, you grow up fast,” she reflects. Stone became one of the three members of the Sequence, the first all-girl rap group. In 1981, when she was just 16, she was spotted by an A&R scout and landed a record deal at Sugarhill records.

She started a band at high school and played at sports events. When the choir started up, I wanted my choir director to know that it wasn’t me that wasn’t singing.”Stone’s father and mother encouraged her to sign up for local talent contests in her early teens, performing songs and dance routines. “When I was 11 I didn’t know that I had a good voice, but I sure knew that I had a loud one. Like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight before her, she discovered her singing talent as a child in the church choir in her native South Carolina.”I was naturally born to do it,” she trills. While he’s undoubtedly talented, it’s significant that Stone helped him write the songs on his d?t album (she also bore his child, Michael, though the pair have since gone their separate ways).Stone comes from a long tradition of soul singers who cite God as their principal inspiration. The last male soul singer who even came close to earning the same plaudits as his female counterparts was D’Angelo. Still, it’s rare to come across a genre where women are more powerful than men.

Since the golden age of soul in the late Sixties and early Seventies, when Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye were at the height of their powers, male artists seem to have eschewed soul music in favour of its more macho offspring: hip hop. I won’t be compared to people who are learning from me.”She agrees that men are lagging behind women when it comes to soul music. I was far in the game before they was even thinking about doing soul music. Lowering her voice to a gravelly whisper, she says: “I’m not gonna allow people to compare me to Lauryn Hill, to Erykah Badu. If someone tells me to work out I say ‘What? What more can I do? I’m going to bed’.”While Stone is generous about her soul-inclined contemporaries, she is adamant that she is working in an altogether different sphere. I’ve worked out every day of my adult life through shopping and changing diapers and cleaning and doing my thing. They love the energy, the sincerity, the sensuality of the music.”I ask her if anyone in the industry suggested that she alter her image? “At this stage, no They know that what they see is what they get And, besides, I’m not one to work out in a gym.