lit a candle 4h agoMy mom called and just said 'Angela Stribling' and I knew from her voice. Quiet Storm was on every night growing up in that house.
Their story
Angela Stribling was an American television host, radio broadcaster, jazz vocalist, and voiceover artist whose warm, unmistakable voice linked Black Entertainment Television, Washington, D.C. radio, and international jazz stages for decades. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, she attended Catholic schools and later Kensington High School. Music filled her…
Angela Stribling was an American television host, radio broadcaster, jazz vocalist, and voiceover artist whose warm, unmistakable voice linked Black Entertainment Television, Washington, D.C. radio, and international jazz stages for decades.
Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, she attended Catholic schools and later Kensington High School. Music filled her childhood home, and she was drawn to jazz as a teenager. She later said she discovered singing at age four and trained classically. After high school she earned a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) in New York City. She then took a job with American Airlines at Baltimore/Washington International Airport. During a Congressional Black Caucus weekend in Washington she saw a city full of progressive African American life and decided to make the capital region home, job or no job. She got the airline job, and stayed.
She began broadcasting as a news intern at WTTG-TV and WOL-AM in Washington, working sales, on-air shifts, and voiceover production, sometimes through long unpaid days she later compared to paying dues. Local audiences responded to her warm style, and she earned an air shift at Howard University's WHUR-FM. Early television work included sitting in on Washington Style on Channel 50, reporting for Evening Magazine, and co-hosting On Time on WJZ-TV in Baltimore in the early 1990s.
A Video Soul producer at BET invited her to audition after hearing her on local television. BET hired her as a relief host. Within months she was co-hosting Screen Scene, the network's entertainment news show, including work alongside Melvin Lindsey. She spent about four years with Screen Scene before becoming central to the launch of BET Jazz, hosting Jazz Central with Ramsey Lewis and Lou Rawls, plus BET Jazz Discovery and BET Jazz Scene. Colleagues remembered her as one of BET's early on-air pioneers. She later appeared as a D.C. anchor in the Eddie Murphy film The Distinguished Gentleman (1992), a role she excitedly called friends about when it landed.
Radio remained a lifelong home. She hosted Pillow Talk with Angela on WHUR and later on JAM98, became a Quiet Storm imaging and hosting voice in D.C. and other markets including WBLS, and worked on SiriusXM Watercolors. Essence and WHUR histories note her as a close friend of Melvin Lindsey and later as a host tied to the Original Quiet Storm tradition at WHUR. She wrote the song I Can Still Feel You about Lindsey after his death. National voiceover credits included campaigns for Mercedes-Benz, Prudential, Time Life, Colgate, and Folgers.
As a classically trained jazz singer, she performed at the Blue Note in New York and released recordings including Angela Stribling...Live and Tokyo Sundays (with Najee). Her single Pillow Talk was produced by Marcus Miller and featured Will Downing and Gerald Albright. She shared stages with Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan, sang for President Bill Clinton and Robert De Niro at a Charles Rangel fundraiser, and toured widely after Hennessy invited her for performances in Myanmar and on an international jazz tour. In profiles she called herself a jazz singer first while insisting her broadcast career was equally part of who she was. She also trained toward a private pilot's license.
In 2020 WHUR and Black Women in Radio celebrated her as a BWIR Influencer. Friends and colleagues announced her death on Sunday, 27 September 2026. Former BET colleague Ed Gordon was among those mourning her, noting a difficult year of losses for the BET family. A cause of death was not made public. Tributes remembered her husband, Ken, and a career that moved between jazz, television, and radio with uncommon ease. Her public date of birth was not made public in major obituaries.
Biography adapted from WHUR biography; Washington Informer (2021); Essence Quiet Storm oral history; Copa Style Magazine interview; Daily Voice and El-Balad death reports (27 Sep 2026); JAM98 host page; IMDb; DVIDS photo ca.
In their own words
“I feel blessed to do what I love. I really care for people genuinely and I want to help them with their relationships on my show.”
Washington Informer interview about Pillow Talk (2021)
“I believe that my real mission as a public figure is to serve people.”
Washington Informer interview (2021)
“We were so close, we could have grown up in each other's houses, that's how much we were alike.”
Essence oral history, remembering Melvin Lindsey
“I said, I know, but who cares, I love you.”
Essence oral history, on Lindsey coming out to her near the end of his life
“Jazz is the true classical music. It was born in America and is a major part of our American History.”
Copa Style Magazine interview
“I'm a jazz singer first. It has always been my passion. However, my broadcast career is also such an integral part of who I am.”
Copa Style Magazine interview
“So very sad to hear Angela Stribling has passed away. We worked together and became friends during our years at the network and remained friends once we both moved on to other opportunities.”
Ed Gordon tribute reported after her 2026 death
“She was phenomenal, still heard there to this day.”
Skip Dillard on hiring her as Quiet Storm imaging voice for WBLS
Photos
1Angela Stribling sings at the Philadelphia Franklin Institute Emerald Honors Dinner, 16 February 2012
Feb 2012 · by People Forever
