You have only sensed this Mary. When she sings, a collection plate should be passed around; tithes seem due. Choruses sung by the Pentecostal daughter become anthems. She carries truth like a wand; respect like a shield. She seeks love, speaks prophecy. “Looking in the mirror nowadays is more than just lookin at me. It’s looking at the depths of me,” she says. Herewith her most musical album; her most soulful reflection: Mary, everlasting.
It hasn’t always been this way. Certain things about Mary Jane Blige you just can’t shake. What’s the 411 presented a shy, combat-booted, tough-love Yonkers queen straight out of the Slow Bomb projects. My Life’s Mary was forsaken, struggling with tensions between the sacred and the secular, breaking mountaintop truths over heads like golden calves. Share My World was an independent, brave step toward the day of reckoning. But let Mary tell it, hers isn’t so much a struggle as a journey.
“I was crying out for help during the My Life album,” she confesses. “If you listen to the song ’Be Happy,’ I was like, Please, somebody come save me. Even by the time Share My World came, I was still trying to find my way.” All the multi-platinum sales, accolades and awards in the world didn’t matter. That was the problem; they were of the world. Life has been difficult these last couple years, she’ll tell you. But the point is the not in her deep-set scars, it’s the her healing. And Mary is getting stronger-rising-everyday. Ask her yourself. How you doin, Mary? She’ll laugh easy. “I’m holding on.”
“The making of this album was unbelievable,” Mary says. “All I saw was love; I don’t normally see that. No problems, no nonsense in the studio. It was ’You coming right or you not comin in here.’” A sampling of those who made it through: Elton John. Lauryn Hill. Chucky Thompson. DMX. Aretha Franklin. Babyface. Eric Clapton. K-Ci Hailey. Nas.
Mary co-wrote 90% of the album, which she approached for a seventies, early eighties feel. Mary, the album, is about what’s happening in her life now. “You know the feeling you get listening to Stevie Wonder’s Songs In the Key of Life?” she asks. “That’s the feeling I needed to hear from this album. And I definitely think we got it.”
I’d give my flesh/ For yours I’d sacrifice/ Everything. . .
Mary is a fluid venture from it’s first single, “All That I Can Say”, featuring Lauryn Hill’s signature old school, doo-wop production and simply pretty background vocals. It’s a slow, lucid swing and one of Lauryn’s best production efforts, Miseducation included. “That’s what I love about Lauryn,” says Mary. “I don’t think any other artist would have done that for me. When she looks at me, it’s not with eyes of envy.” Rather, there’s a respectful, female intimacy, evident throughout the airy, snaking song. But “All”’s most chilling moment is when Mary and Lauryn get to the otherside of the bridge (Lauryn is known for building a sturdy bridge) and out comes a covert wail: Mary’s heaaaarrree!
Actually, much of Mary will make you tremble and rock. “Beautiful One” is a delicate, deeply rooted song that reunites Mary with Chucky Thompson who produced most of My Life. The track’s phrasing is more profound than complex; the arrangement, angelic. It’s also Mary Jane Blige’s favorite song on the album. “Oh my God, I feel crazy on the inside when I hear it, like heaven was running through me, a message has been given to me,” she says. “I just wanted to cry. I can picture my wedding through this song, but when I sing You are my love, you are my diamond, you are my flower, you are my life, you are everything to me, I’m saying that the beautiful one is in you.”
Perhaps Mary’s most intriguing track is “Not Lookin.’” Originally the song was to be a duet with R&B artist Joe, then Eric from Blackstreet. But the only man who could stand up vocally to Mary was K-Ci Hailey, one of her greatest tests and teachers. They haven’t dueted since What’s the 411’s “I Don’t Want To Do Anything.” As ever, Mary is honest about their six—year reunion. “When my manager suggested K-Ci, at first I was like, ’Hell No! None of that,’” she says, recalling their intense relationship and subsequent breakup. “But I thought about it, and said, Know what? The boy can sing.” Accordingly, the two holla like they’re in a field.
Elton John is featured on “Deep Inside” and is a professed fan of Mary; he told the world so on VH1; told her when he met her at Madison Square Garden. He greeted her like the lady she is, with gifts of perfume and a Versace pocketbook. Set on top of his 1973 classic, “Bennie and the Jets,” the coupling of Mary and John is effortless. John’s organ is foreboding and instigating; his piano tickling and loose. Mary rides it the whole way, singing a shut-eyed song like she’s being channeled.
“Deep Inside” is an acceptance song. Those who know and love Mary understand that when she pleads, almost exhaustedly, Deep inside I wish you could see/ That I’m just plain ol’ Mary, Mary, that we do see; always have. That’s why we know and love her. “My people-my fans-understand that this song is not for them,” Mary concurs. “It’s for anyone who’s getting ready to approach me, trying to be in my life, but they’re looking at jewelry, a car, what hotel I’m stayin in, a name. This is for those negative forces. Get back.”
“Don’t Waste Your Time” features Mary with Aretha Franklin; a formidable pair a best. “That just takes courage in itself,” Mary laughs. “Walking in a studio with a woman who’s been in our hearts and our homes and our lives forever? Since we can remember? There’s nothing but love for her. There was a point where she said, ’You think you look like me? I got real scared and said, “No.” She said, “I think you look like me.” The gentle sentiment made Mary’s mother cry.
Mary is grown; just listen to thoughtful, real—life tracks like the haunting “Your Child.” Produced by newcomer Gerald Issac, the song’s bluesy, even mournful, lyrics tell an unexpected woman-to-woman meeting: Girlfriend, Mary sings, She wasn’t disrespectful/ In fact she’s a 100% sho/ How could I argue with her?/ Holding a baby with eyes like yours/ She said it’s your child. . .”
She fully wrote, “Time” foundation is Stevie Wonder’s “Pasttime Paradise,” the song, fully penned by Mary, conjures Marvin Gaye’s redemptive 1978 song of the same name in their seeking of deliverance. All Mary is trying to tell you is that time is winding up. She remakes the Gap Band’s 1979 ballad, “I’m In Love” and Malik Pendleton (“Seven Days“) remakes “Let No Man Put Asunder“ a rare groove club track that Mary’s mother used to jam on when First Choice first recorded it in 1977. Mary’s Pentacostal roots show when, at the bridge, she sings What has been joined by God, let no man put asunder! “Some people ask me if I think about making my music sound like gospel,” she says. “Well, how can you think about having annointance?”
“I’m just really concerned about the hip hop/ R&B audience-the audience that made me,” she continues. “All the people in the projects that get a welfare check every month and go buy a Mary album. I didn’t put Eric Clapton, who is very soulful on his guitar, and Elton John, who was at one time a big part of black music, on my album because I want to crossover. I put them on Mary because I like what they do.”
And so there is no more holding herself back, no more fear. She is handling everything around her differently. Out with unconstructive criticism. “I don’t give a damn what people think anymore. I’m not afraid. I got things in me that I learned when I was a little girl; now that I’m free, all of that is coming back. And I have so much more.”
Remember now: children are blessed; playful and so brave. See things that we won’t. Mary is not afraid to let the bottom drop out completely from under her voice just to see what she can see. Mary is comfortable with imperfection; it’s what makes us divine. But this is also the first time in Mary J. Blige’s life that she has been able to call herself a woman.
If you listen closely, Mary will tell you why.
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Click For Discography
No More Drama
Mary
The Tour
Share My World
My Life
What's The 411? remix
What's The 411
Pictures, Lyrics & Links
