Mary J. Blige

It's hard to imagine Mary J. Blige not being "Mary J. Blige" — the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul is such a regal and familiar figure, it seems she couldn't be anyone but herself. Yet throughout her career, lovers, business associates, hangers-on and would-be starmakers have been trying to get her to be someone else.

"I've always had pressure from the record company, you know, wanting me to lie," she said recently about certain executives' plots for her to score higher record sales. "When I first got into this business — I would never mention any names — someone asked me if I would change my name and lie about my age. I said, 'No! I'm not doing that,' because when the time really comes for me to be whatever, I'm not even going to know who I am and how old I am.

"There are just certain things that I'm not going to sell my soul for."

Still, even though MJB might be the realest singer of her generation, as you'll soon read, she hasn't always been as real with herself or her fans as she wanted to be. But she says all that's changing with her new album, The Breakthrough — out December 20 — the seventh studio effort in her storied catalog (which also includes a live album and two remix LPs).

The Many Faces Of Mary J. Blige

Featuring collaborations with producers such as Cool & Dre and the Neptunes, The Breakthrough's material is decidedly more upbeat in theme. The singer knows that some fans prefer the miserable Mary to the newer, "No more drama" Mary, but she's not going to pretend she isn't married (this month marks the second anniversary of her wedding to record producer Kendu Isaacs) and content. Nor will she rest on her laurels. She has to keep it real.

"I never laugh or look back and say 'Look at me now,' " she says. "Nah, I don't do that. Where I'm from, we never brag about what we have. We just keep moving. The minute you start looking back, that's when you trip over something — like when we put [2003's] Love & Life album out. I don't believe I was being as honest with my fans as I normally am."

The gloves are certainly off now. You think you've heard Mary at her most candid before? Get ready for another round. The Queen took MTV News' Shaheem Reid on a guided tour through her career, talking about her relationship with Diddy, about men who hated her so much that they pulled guns on her, about her unique relationship with her fans, about surviving betrayals and deception — and most of all, about how she finally learned how to love herself and others.

What's the 411?, 1992

MJB: "I was fresh out of the 'hood, just wanting to sing. The first song we did was 'You Remind Me.' I don't remember where we did that record at, but Dave Hall produced it. I was going crazy when I first heard it because he used the Biz Markie sample and all that pretty music — that's the first time I ever heard anything like that. That song was definitely the birth of hip-hop soul.

"A lot of the collaboration I had on those records was with Puff. He was bringing all those people onto the project, from [Brand Nubian's] Grand Puba to Craig Mack and Biggie. I got to know them through them being on the records.

"[Making that album] was like a cloud — I don't remember the studio or if I was at the house. All I remember is the songs."

RATING: "I would give What's the 411 a 10."

What's the 411? Remix, 1992

MJB: "Wow. I had just moved to New Jersey, I was on my second apartment. Puff brought over the remix album and he played the remix with Heavy D. on it — [Sings] 'What you gonna do without my love.' I lost my mind. I cried. I did everything that a person could do when they are excited about something.

"And 'Real Love,' oh man. It's crazy to go to a club and the remix with Biggie on it still drives everybody crazy and has everybody running to the dance floor, singing along as though it was 1992. It's crazy that record is still that powerful today."

RATING: "I would definitely give that remix album a 10.

My Life, 1994

MJB: "With the My Life album, you know, I gotta really, really give it to Puff. He knew what I was, so he delivered tracks that were me. He studied me and brought things that he knew were going to make me just scream and act stupid.

"So when we first started, Puff bought me a track from Chucky [Thompson, producer] that everybody forgets about, 'Be With You.' And it was so crazy and grimy — heavy bass, big beats, big drums — that I began to write right there. I was so miserable, I began to write what I was dealing with right there. And each and every record from that point was based on me writing whatever I was dealing with, because that's what the music did: The music gave me a better misery. It was incredible how each and every song came with the undertone of misery.

" 'My Life' is based on love of the Roy Ayers song [the oft-sampled 'Everybody Loves the Sunshine']. The original is amazing, it always made me feel like I wanted to live and die like I didn't know which one I wanted to do — I would just spin out of control. So I began to write. I wrote that song with a girl by the name of Arlene DelValle, and we both were miserable writing that record together — and happy, too. We really, really wanted to be happy like we were miserable.

"I always thought I was the only person going through something — this is why I speak so freely and loudly about things now, because I had no idea there were so many people with me who were miserable like that. I found out by performing at shows and people coming up to me saying, 'Mary! This album, girl! I'm going through the same thing!' I was bugging out — people were having the exact same situations. Females in abusive relationships, men who were abusing their wives or their girlfriends, walking up to me going, 'Yo, you started some trouble in my house.' It's not me; it's the records. But the people made that record with me. That's my favorite album, by the way."

RATING: "I would give My Life a 10. That record is the epitome of what we're going through. It's so much pain, it's like a workout. To get through that much pain is a workout. You understand what I'm saying?"

Share My World, 1997

MJB: "Share My World was a point where I was a little nervous, but not afraid. That was around the time Puff and I separated, and I was like, 'Yeah, I got to do this on my own,' but I was never afraid. People were saying, 'What you going to do without Puff?' and all that. If people were never saying that — and if I never was a person that listened to what people say — it probably would have been a better album. But there was a lot of confusion on that album because I was confused. I really don't understand what happened with the R. Kelly record on that, 'It's On.'

"There was so much shady, underhanded, rude, crazy stuff going on during Share My World, because I didn't have anyone and everybody was trying to help me and I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know anything about business. At the end of the day, that only draws crooks to you. But it's not the crooks' fault, it's my fault for not knowing my business. So I don't hold anyone accountable that robbed me and did whatever they did at the time — I hold myself accountable because I didn't know my business. So that album is definitely an album of confusion and ignorance. All of them have ignorance and confusion on them, but that one right there was the spin-out, for real."

RATING: "It doesn't even have consistency from song to song. My Life we would just roll through, but Share My World, you have to stop sometimes and find out what you listening to. So I would give it an 8."

The Tour [live], 1998

MJB: "Recording a live album from a concert is easy. You don't even care you're recording a live album. You're just doing what you do every single night. It's nothing to it. When I first got into the music business, I was performing pretty badly because I was insecure with what and who I was. I didn't even know who I was. When you don't know who you are, you can't deliver. For a long time I couldn't deliver, I was afraid. I was thinking I wasn't gonna hit notes. All I could hear was people in my head that talked about me that said 'Mary can't sing.' At the end of the day, I just couldn't deliver because I cared too much about what other people said and I didn't believe in myself at all.

"I came from an environment where nobody believed in you. Coming from the projects getting in the music business, a business where people around you don't want to do anything that see you fall and and fail. ... The more I paid attention to it, due to my insecurities, it made me a worse person and worse performer. So right now I'm in a place where it doesn't matter what you say about me… I'm not into catering to the negative. The positive is definitely making me a better person and performer."

RATING: "I would give that album a 4 because I sound terrible. I was doing bad in every kind of way. Vocally I was a mess. I was a mess period. I didn’t like the way I sound. I was screaming. It was crazy."

Mary, 1999

MJB: "Mary was an album where I was making up my mind — falsely — to become an adult. I'm an adult now, but [then] I was a stupid kid, still. You know when kids are trying to be grown? That's when their lives get messed up, and I think that's when my life really began to spin out of control. Like, there were moments where people said to me they hated me — men. And held guns on me. I was going through it.

"Let me tell you what the problem is: When a person hates themselves that much, you're only going to draw people to you that hate you just as much. I hated myself to the point where I would draw people to me that had smiles on their faces and that wanted something from me that really didn't like me — they just wanted to use me and dog me and try to take me out of the world. But that's what happens when you don't like yourself."

RATING: "So Mary is another one of those confused, 'I don't know what I'm going to do' albums. I have to give it an 8, right along with Share My World."

No More Drama, 2001

MJB: "No More Drama was the beginning of every vulture, crook and person that hated me breaking out. Because I began to wake up and see that I was better than I thought I was, or better than the people who had negative things to say about me. I said, 'I'm tired of people using me, I'm tired of people lying to me, I'm tired of me lying to me and just always being so hard on myself.' That was the beginning of everyone that was not really for Mary J. Blige being exposed, and when they got exposed, the music began to get better. When they got exposed, a whole new set of people with different ways, different tactics of the same manipulation came in. They got exposed too — and that's what happened with the No More Drama album.

"It was the beginning of something that was hardest thing for me to do, and that's to get out the comfort zone of being miserable, to try to understand that it's a lie. 'You don't have to be mad, you don't have to be sad, you don't have to hate yourself, you don't have to do this — Mary, wake up!' That felt like somebody had a fire on my entire body and I had to walk through that part of my life with that fire all over me, trying to find water to put it out. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

RATING: "I would give No More Drama a 9, because we were on our way out."

Love & Life, 2003

MJB: "Love & Life was during a point where, once you have forgiveness for people and want to start anew, you let that guard down of being wise and watchful. You go against what you really feel and what's really in your heart — and what's really in your heart is you don't trust anyone around you. So Love & Life was really like a fictional album because it was based on me doing what people wanted me to do again. I was around a group of people that said I was crazy, and I didn't want people to think I was crazy and I really didn't want to share with my fans what was going on in my life. And what was going on is that I was still emotional and still disappointed in my life — not because of my relationship but because I didn't know how to have a relationship. I didn't know how to love somebody, I didn't know how to be patient, so I was going through hell on Love & Life. That was pitiful because I thought it was all about using the 'Oh, I forgive and I love,' and it turns out it's a fictional album when you don't use that wisdom."

RATING: I would give Love & Life a 5. Not based on the material that was on it, but based on the deception of where it came from.

The Breakthrough, 2005

MJB: "Basically, The Breakthrough is Mary J. Blige not being what everybody else wanted her to be. You either like me or you don't: This is who I am and f--- if I've lost fans. I've made the choice to be happy — it's a choice that you make. This is the only place where I'm going to survive, and that's what The Breakthrough is about: making a choice to survive, to hell with everybody that has something negative to say.

"If I'm not sad, I'm not going to pretend to be sad to make a record. I'm going to go back to my experiences and grab something from the pain, or grab something that people never even heard about from me and put it on paper. But I'm not going to lie to my fans because my fans are not stupid and I do not look at them as stupid. I look at them as they're me, so I give them the real deal. And it's like, Mary's happy. Mary has problems too, but Mary chooses to be happy because Mary could also choose to be miserable. It's a bigger deal than just people — it's about what God thinks. He's given me all this, and I'm not going to spit in his face."

RATING: "I would give this album a 10 because I have broken through. I'm in a place where people can relate to me if they are ready. I know we did a great job. We put a lot of hard work and time into this."

12/6/05

Source: MTV

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