FEATURE:
Memories
Mary J. Blige’s Mary at Twenty-Five
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1999 is a year…
IN THIS PHOTO: Mary J. Blige in 1999/PHOTO CREDIT: Time + Life/Getty Images
that saw its fair share of monumental and brilliant albums. Artists really ending the decade (century and millennium) with a real bang. It was such an exciting year for music. Nobody knew what lay ahead in the twenty-first century. 1999 saw Pop changing and evolving. Dance and other genres changing and becoming more influential. So many timeless albums released that year. Maybe one that some overlook but should be considered as worthy as the best of 1999 is Mary J. Blige’s Mary. The fourth studio album from the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, it turns twenty-five on 17th August. I am going to bring in a few reviews for a tremendous album from a true legend. For those who have not heard the album, I would recommend you check it out. This was a hot run for Blige. 1997’s Share My World and 2001’s No More Drama are incredible and acclaimed albums. If not all critics celebrated this work like they should, fans definitely did. Mary reached number two in the U.S. and five in the U.K. Featuring duets with, among others, Aretha Franklin and George Michael, such rich musicianship throughout, and incredible sampling and interpolations, Mary is an album that was definitely up there with the best of 1999. There was a bit of dynamic and emotional shift from her previous work. Perhaps stepping away from the more raunchy and edgy Hip-hip and R&B, there was this move towards something more sensual, mature and polished. Reminiscent of 1970s Soul music, it was a bit of a shock to some fans and critics. Mary J. Blige, as a dynamic and inventive artist, did not want to stay still and repeat herself.
I want to move on to some reviews of the wonderful Mary. Beginning with one from Rolling Stone. They wrote about the album in September 1999. If some preferred the artist who was breaking boundaries and changing the game at the start of her career, those who could appreciate why Mary J. Blige was moving into new territory definitely got a lot from Mary. It is definitely one of my favourite albums of 1999. It still sounds remarkable twenty-five years after its release:
“AT FIRST IT seems a bit strange: There’s only one MC on Mary J. Blige‘s new album, Mary. On her first and third studio albums — the genre-creating What’s the 411? and the merely stellar Share My World — she tapped a host of rhymers: Busta Rhymes, Grand Puba, Lil’ Kim, Nas. On her second album, the emotional autobiography My Life, there was a Keith Murray cameo and a slew of Puffy-produced interpolations. This latest record is her most superstar-packed — she welcomes aboard Lauryn Hill (producing and singing backup, not rhyming), Sir Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Babyface, Eric Clapton and ex-boyfriend K-Ci Hailey of K-Ci and JoJo — but with the late excision of the stunning “Sincerity,” featuring DMX and Nas, there’s a conspicuous void.
Blige seems to have moved away from the Terry McMillan once-again-he’s-breaking-my-heart mantra to, perhaps, an Oprah love-your-spirit ethos. She begins Mary with the lush Lauryn-produced “All That I Can Say,” singing, “Loving you is wonderful / Something like a miracle.” Two songs later, on “Beautiful Ones,” she sings, “With your love, maybe in my life / You know, we can stop the rain,” a direct answer to her classic theme song, “Everyday It Rains.” Of course, there are songs about sadness, like the brilliant strength-in-pain anthem “The Love I Never Had” — where she blares, “I gotta wake up!” while a Jimmy Jam-and-Terry Lewis-produced live band funks behind her — as well as the deep ballad “Your Child” and the spectacular “Memories.” But “Memories,” with its hot Timbaland-inspired track and junglish drum line, doesn’t match the sadness of which Mary speaks. The woman who concluded My Life singing, “All I really want is to be happy” seems to have found strength and happiness on the album’s closer, a remake of the classic disco invocation “Let No Man Put Asunder.” (You may remember the counterhook: “It’s not over between you and me.”)
Mary is moving away from the hip-hop-tinged, interpolation-heavy sound of her earlier albums into a sound that’s even more soulful, singing over a large live band or alongside Eric Clapton’s guitar or Elton John’s piano. But she remains the queen of hip-hop soul. Where most singers open their throats and make pretty sounds, MCs strive to represent the hopes and fears of their audience, to embody the collective I. Where singers make you love their records, MCs make you love them. So, though she never rhymes, Mary is an MC. On second thought, it’s perfect that the only MC on Mary’s record be Mary”.
There are a couple of other reviews I want to bring in. The BBC celebrated a greatly accomplished fourth studio album from a musical genius. Mary won its fair share of accolades and award nominations. In 2000, Mary J. Blige was nominated for Best International Female Solo Artist at the BRITs. Three GRAMMY nominations, include Best R&B Album. Songs like Deep Inside and All That I Can Say mark this album out as a classic. 1999 is one of the most diverse and exciting music years. Mary definitely adds to the richness and brilliance of the year:
“Mary is the widescreen fourth studio album from Mary J. Blige, which finds her edging further toward an adult-oriented market. Even its cover, a stark black and white image of her with African jewellery, underlines that Blige is leaving the street and going somewhere deeper, more substantial.
Overseen by Blige and Kirk Burrowes, the selection of producers and grooves unite here in a rare way. It is a post-modern composite, and it is, of course, unafraid to parade its bling.
Opening with the Lauryn Hill-produced All That I Can Say, Mary at once demonstrates that Blige, who had then been a star for best part of a decade, could still keep and rise above the company of the hottest current artists.
Sexy takes Michael Jackson’s I Can’t Help It and fashions a woozy, off-kilter vibe. Deep Inside features a re-recording of Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets, with John slamming away at his piano like he’s having the time of his life. It is absolutely infectious, and one of the standouts of Blige’s career.
Rich Harrison - who would go on to produce Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love - is responsible here for Beautiful Ones, which takes a sample of guitarist Earl Klugh’s version of Bacharach and David’s April Fools and supports an incredibly passionate delivery from Blige. Don’t Waste Your Time, a duet with Aretha Franklin, is a beautiful meeting of minds.
One of Aretha’s old duet partners, George Michael, turns up on the spirited cover of Stevie Wonder’s As, which appeared on European editions of the album. It is tribute running riot, with Michael attempting to dazzle in Blige’s company. However, the moment she opens her mouth, he is vanquished. The song gave Blige her then-highest UK chart placing (4), and paved the way for the album to break into the UK top 5.
A huge star for two decades, Mary J. Blige may not have had the ostentatious career climaxes of other artists, but she's created a steady, consistent and often astonishing catalogue. Mary is one of the most thrilling instalments of this career”.
Rather than another review, there are a couple of other features worth sourcing. There is an interview from The Guardian with Mary J. Blige that is fascinating reading. They spoke with her in 1999 about her upcoming fourth studio album:
“The anger management and showbiz etiquette classes seem to be working. An aide asks Mary J Blige to change hotel rooms for the interview, another asks her to change clothes for the photos. No crockery flies. No one dies. Blige acquiesces with a shrug.
Before her ascension with 1991's What's the 411, R&B was still a world of fluttering divas in evening wear. Blige presented new iconography: a hard-headed hip-hop girl who exulted in the tough, working-class culture she grew up with. Despite worldwide appetite for this brash ghetto style, the reality for Blige has been traumatic. Several times it has threatened to derail her career - hence the temper control and etiquette tutor (who has now been sacked).
Her antagonism and surliness are easily traceable to insecurity and low self-esteem. She was brought up by her teenage single mother, Cora, dropped out of school at 15 and seemed set for a life of drug and alcohol problems (both admitted) with occasional hairdressing and babysitting thrown in.
She recorded Anita Baker's Caught Up In The Rapture in a mall for fun and the tape reached Sean "Puffy" Combs. Combs was then the 21-year-old head of A&R at the booming and innovative Uptown records, helping shape new street-edged R&B. He and boss Andre Harrell travelled to Blige's flat, auditioned her and signed her.
Even with success Blige seemed to bear the imprint of the depressive. She walked out of interviews or didn't turn up. She walked off stage on her first British dates and suffered a savage backlash. By the time My Life arrived, Blige says she was suicidal. She split from the ambitious Combs and was on the point of bankruptcy after what she describes as management embezzlement and a bad contract.
Most harrowing of all was her love affair with K-ci Hailey, singer with the now defunct soul group Jodeci. From the outside the pair were the dream couple of the new 90s street soul. But Blige was suffering from what she describes as physical and mental abuse. The mental abuse was made public in 1990. Interviewed on The Word, Blige confirmed the two were engaged to be married. The show then cut to Hailey who denied that the pair were even going out. When I interviewed Uptown boss Andre Harrell in 1994 he confirmed their wedding would take place that summer. When I met Hailey later that year, he said talking about relationships - let alone weddings - would upset his female fans. The relationship ended several years ago.
Today, sitting in a highrise Manhattan hotel suite crammed with lunch, laptops, entourage and family, Blige still bristles with her usual distrust of strangers and media fuss, but she appears the most balanced and business-like I've seen her; happier and stronger.
The new album, Mary, contains some inspiring upbeat love grooves. Never theless it's her rasping bluesy voice on the pleading heartbreak of Don't Waste Your Time (a duet with Aretha Franklin), the Elton John-assisted Deep Inside, and the chilling Your Child which really stop you in your tracks. The nightmare she refers to may be long over, but her new music suggests that the catharsis is ongoing.
K-ci Hailey and his group Jodeci were another spectacular 90s success. The group had driven from a small town in Virginia to Uptown records, sung for Andre Harrell in reception and been signed. In a drastic image change they too came to symbolize the swaggering urban cool that Blige represented. Blige and Hailey could have enjoyed the rush of young fame together, but they didn't. In a spooky echo of the Ike and Tina Turner story, Blige blames K-ci Hailey for continued abuse resulting from his fear of her success. Since their split, a time during which she says she feared for her life, Blige has got her act back together.
"He had to be out," she says. "That was something that was holding me back. He didn't want me to have nothing. He didn't want me to sing when I was already a singer. He held me back from shows when I had to get on planes. When I say mental and physical abuse, everyone knows it was him. He'd use Jodeci interviews to say horrible things about me."
The most extraordinary thing about these revelations is K-ci Hailey's appearance on her new album. The duet Not Looking is, all the more amazingly, about a woman rejecting the advances of a cocky, gangster-type suitor and demanding a more mature and sensible partner. "I did the record with him but we weren't in the same studio," she explains. "I was in New York and he was in LA and we didn't see each other. My managers thought it was a good business move. I was totally against it. But then I tried Joe (another R&B star) on the song, I tried Eric from Blackstreet on the song; no one could pull it off. Then I spoke to K-ci and said 'Would you do the song?' and he said 'Yeah, no problem'. It was just business." Blige tells Hailey on the song "I'm not lookin' for no arrogant egotistical playa shit!" He wails that his love is real and apologises for past behaviour. The song ends with Blige's sarcastic rejoinder: "I know you're sorry".
But Blige has found new friends and musical collaborators through the experience. Lauryn Hill stepped in to lend support and wrote two songs on the album including the new single All That I Can Say. Hill also drew on the pain of bad love for much of last year's Grammy-winning album. Her duet with Blige, I Used to Love Him, takes on new poignancy in the light of these revelations.
Blige now shares her four-bedroom house in New Jersey with sister La Tonya and the latter's husband and children. The surrogate family has given her support, and there's a real feeling of breezy carefree love on I'm in Love and All That I Can Say.
"I'm in Love is about being in love with life. When you feel hope, you feel free and you start loving life. You start feeling that something good is coming - some man maybe. And I say that 'cos I can't help it. I'm into men! Maybe God is shaping him and moulding him right now or maybe he's right in my face every day and I haven't noticed yet. I've got to get used to not having someone around now but it's hard. It's hard in the middle of the night or maybe on the road in Europe. I get depressed. But I'd rather be alone than hold on to something which is artificial."
More recently Blige has entered pop territory uncharted by a credible street artist. Elton John is a friend and plays the Benny and The Jets piano riff borrowed for Deep Inside. She met George Michael the day before his solo performance in a Beverly Hills toilet and ended up recording As, the number one duet, with him.
"We like Sir Elton because he was real from the beginning. I met him at Madison Square Garden and we had something in common because there is a certain person from the fashion industry, a stupid model, that we don't like. Elton said: 'I like you because you don't like her either!' And I was like: 'Someone's with me on this!'
"Then I left the concert and the next day it said on the news he dedicated Benny and The Jets to me. I couldn't believe it. We called and asked him to play on the album. He came to the studio with a Versace bag and all the perfume out of the store. He made me feel real good. He was love. Sir Elton is real!
"I met George in LA with Babyface. I've always been a fan; he's always been in our lives. I grew up watching Wham! and George Michael on MTV. And when he met me, he was like: 'I love you! You're the greatest!' Just to be recognised by him was amazing. So the next day, when the scandal blew up, I was like: 'Oh shit!' But that never stopped me from loving him. But God tests you in so many ways as to what you're supposed to do and I knew I was supposed to love that man no matter what.
With that, she's off to rehearse a show with Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden. Four days later she calls me, anxious to edit the more heinous accusations against her former lover. "That's the past. I don't want it hanging round my neck forever," she says. "I forgive and move on”.
I am going to end with this feature. Writing about Mary last August, they noted how Blige was following her 1970s muse and stepping into Neo-Soul. It was a refreshing and necessary move that brought new layers and elements to her work. Allowed her voice to go to new places. Explore different musical territory and work with some great new collaborators:
“Throughout her career, Mary J. Blige has received many titles to describe her unique brand of soul. On her fourth studio album, Mary, the “queen of hip-hop soul” stripped away her usual contemporary sounds, opting for a classic R&B approach. No longer masking her ornate bravado with hip-hop samples and Uptown vocals, Blige took a plunge into the newly established world of neo-soul, harkening back to essential 70s-styled R&B. The album’s third track, “Deep Inside,” provided its sentimental thesis: Blige wished her listeners “could see that I’m just plain ol’ Mary.”
A new chapter
Released on August 17, 1999, Mary signaled a new chapter not only in the singer’s life, but in her musical evolution. In the three studio albums leading up to the album, Blige earned her place in the industry by fusing uptempo hip-hop swagger with rough-hewn vocals that unearthed the pain and passion of black womanhood – whether that was searching for ‘Real Love’ on her New Jack Swing-tinged What’s The 411?, or declaring “I Can Love You”(better than she can) over the mafioso beat of Lil’ Kim’s “Queen Bi__h,” on Share My World. In the 90s, Mary J. Blige became an iconic voice and representation of Generation X street culture, style, slang, and popular music.
At the end of the decade, both R&B and hip-hop experienced a renaissance, as the genres rapidly merged towards a new alternative. By 1999, neo-soul had pushed its way to the forefront of mainstream R&B thanks to the likes of Erykah Badu, D’Angelo and Maxwell. Blige had previously collaborated with another neo-soul pioneer, Lauryn Hill, on “I Used To Love Him,” from the latter’s The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, and on Mary, Hill returned the favor, writing the album’s soulful opener and singing background vocals on “All That I Can Say.”
A blissful state
The first half of Mary documents a blissful state of being in love, with neo-soul acting as the engine that powers through that euphoria. As the follow-up to “All That I Can Say,” “Sexy” rekindles Blige’s hip-hop soul instincts with a sophisticated lounge groove meant for mixers, while fellow Yonkers native Jadakiss jumps on the track with a verse.
‘Deep Inside’ finds the singer at her most vulnerable and introspective over Elton John’s 1973 classic “Bennie And The Jets,” lamenting the obstacles that her fame creates for her relationships. Hardly a sample or interpolation, when you’re Mary J. Blige, you just get Sir Elton himself to come and play piano on the track for you. Perhaps even more surprising than that, however, is “Beautiful Ones,” which begins with the winding guitar strings of Earl Klugh’s 1976 instrumental “The April Fools” and loops repeatedly over the lush melody as Blige opines about her lover’s qualities.
An old soul
Since her start, Blige always had a knack for drawing on the healing remedies of old-school R&B, most notably on her cover of Rufus And Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing” and her use of a jazzy Roy Ayers sample of “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” on “My Life.” This thematic evolution continues on Mary, with its more mature lyrics and the expansive resonance in her singing voice. Blige draws upon 70s R&B and soul for the album, in particular her favorite songs she grew up with.
The first act of Mary concludes with a cover of the 1979 Gap Band classic “I’m In Love.” The song highlights a sunshine motif that recurs throughout the first half of the album, as Blige hits her highest octave on the line “The sun will shine for me and you”.
A painful return
Following “I’m In Love,” Mary takes a turn as Blige once again taps into a darker pain that drives so much of her music. Dubbed a “a virtuoso of suffering” by The New York Times, Blige has also derived art from her most scarring experiences. Rather than dress up that sorrow with theatrics and her usual flashiness, however, on Mary, Blige lets things sink in, keeping the arrangement simple, which allows her to be more vulnerable.
On the consciousness-raising “Time,” Blige takes aim at the world and her armchair critics while referencing two classic songs, first sampling Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise,” from the Motown icon’s 1976 opus, Songs In The Key Of Life, and flipping the script on The Rolling Stones as she laments, “Time is not on our side.”
A turbulent relationship
Blige’s on-again-off-again relationship with fellow R&B crooner “K-Ci” Hailey, of K-Ci And JoJo, has been a core subject throughout her work. Plagued with infidelity, jealousy, domestic violence and drug abuse, the turmoil from their toxic love has brought the singer some of her most memorable deep cuts, including “Memories,” on which she declares, “Valentine’s Day will never be the same.”
Aretha Franklin weighs in and advises her soulful progeny on “Don’t Waste Your Time,” before K-Ci himself appears on “Not Lookin,’” confessing, through back and forth banter, that he doesn’t want to fall in love with Blige, regardless of his true feelings. The pain continues on Mary’s stand-out ballad, “Your Child,” which sees Blige confronting her disloyal partner and the woman he impregnates.
By the time you get to “No Happy Holiday,” Blige realizes she’s still in love, despite the heartbreak, and in true diva fashion, she advises herself to “wake up” in order to not lose “The Love I Never Had,” singing over the funk blare of the Jimmy Jam- and Terry Lewis-produced live band.
All-star guests
Swapping out guest MCs for rock’n’roll legends on Mary, Blige recruited Eric Clapton for the slow-burning “Give Me You,” an organ-heavy olive branch of forgiveness. Slowhand saves the fancier fretwork for later, quietly supporting Blige until he fully unleashes his guitar mid-way through the song. Blige then closes out the album with a disco-influenced cover of First Choice’s 1977 single, “Let No Man Put Asunder.”
By the end of Mary’s 72-minute run, the queen of hip-hop soul has proved that she is, in fact, the queen of R&B. The album not only showcases her ability to weave various motifs throughout her music, but also her skill at tackling different branches of the genre: past, present, and future. Most importantly, it achieved what R&B music is all about: using rhythm’n’blues to express your own story of love, hurt, and redemption, and having the audience feel every note”.
On 17th August, the stunning Mary turns twenty-five. Seven years after her peerless debut album, What's the 411?, Mary J. Blige was still at the top of her game. Ending the century with a remarkable statement and ambitious album, you can hear its influence in artists today. Mary is ample proof that its creator is…
ONE of the all-time greats.