originally published 2012 / Detroit Free Press
"What do I have to lose? / I think a little bit more than you...."
- Mary
There's nothing like sister love. It's a love you can trust. Depend on. Lean on. It's shared giggles behind quick glances. It's intimate rituals like sitting between your sister's legs while she makes perfect parts in your scalp.
The closest person to Mary J. Blige is her sister, LaTonya
She is at the all-day photo shoot for the artwork for
Mary's new album, ShareM y Worlds, tanding as a buffer between her sister and the half-dozen people who require things of her. She is on the road with Mary in Minneapolis when she records with Jimmy Jam and
Terry Lewis. And she is there when Mary flies to Chicago to team up with Babyface. She's been there since the beginning, when Mary was backing up Father MC in that fake 1990 Bobby Brown video.
Where Mary goes, La Tonya follows.
She's no foot servant, mind you. La Tonya, who's slightly older than Mary, is a strong vocalist (she and Mary do most of the album's supporting vocals), a songwriter (she contributed several songs to the album), a wife and mother with her own life in suburban Long Island. She shares the same striking but delicate beauty as Mary's; she is mocha to Mary's caramel. Sometimes, these days, La Tonya is all Mary's got. "That's my baby sister, you know ... she used to wear my clothes, I used to comb her hair," La Tonya tells me. "I still look at her like that. I'II\ just real protective of her, still.
For her part, Mary doesn't complain when the photographer asks her to pose in the cold drizzle, in a white
mink, on the corner of Morningside and 125th Street. And when she leans over the countertop inside M&G
Diner for more photos, and an elderly, Sunday-suited Harlem gentleman (who remains in the frame for authentic detail) asks her how she came to be known as the ~een of Hip Hop Soul, she doesn't become annoyed. How he knows her alias is anybody's guess. She tells him sweetly, "I don't know. The fans came up with it; it stuck." She's surrounded by people she trusts completely-her younger brother, her cousin, and, most importantly, La Tonya. Her skin is glowing. Her weave is tight. She smiles easily. Mary J. Blige is happy. The 1991 photo shoot for Mary's first album, What's the 411?, was in a cramped studio apartment in Gramercy Park.
"I WENT THROUGH A PERIOD WHEN I DIDN'T CARE
ABOUT ME; SO WHAT THE WORLD THOUGHT WAS
IRRELEVANT," BLIGE SAYS". BUT l'M HAPPY NOW.
I JUST FEEL..FREE."
Puffy Combs was there. Mary was wearing a pleated tennis skirt, and her eyes were locked on her Doc Martens combat boots. Puff kept coaxing her to "feel it." But it was hard for Mary to feel it without one of the hats her stylist had on the rack. She'd pull a baseball capway down, hooding her beautiful doe eyes. Then she'd stare at the camera like it was a showdown, as if she could wear down the lens with sheer will. If only she were indifferent
enough. So much has changed. "Back then, I used to be so mad. And for what?"
Mary says. "I just feel like I get so much more done now, and with a better attitude." At 25, Mary is on the other side of womanhood. The side where it's real. No one says "you're so young" anymore. Girl shit" is no longer cute. No more hiding behind Arnets. Staring at one's shoes is no longer acceptable. "I know, right? Womanhood. I feel the growth," she says. In what ways? "Well, now I know that when I'm going through something, it's me. No one else has to know. No one else cares."
Guarded and vulnerable, Mary has always, albeit unwittingly, seemed to beg for our protection. There was the sudden explosion that followed the definitive debut album What's the 411? The awkward dance with new fame. The visible panty lines at the SoulTrain Music Awards. There was the intense love affair with Jodeci's K-Ci Hailey (and the Uptown M TV Unplugged performance of "I Don't Want to Do Anything," in which she and K-Ci exchanged verses with true passion, Mary's tears glistening behind her shades). There was the perfect My Life in 1994, an open, painful letter to K-Ci. And there was her departure from Puff, the brother figure who gave her wings and guided her through her first albums by setting the tone and providing the themes. Now there is the fear-though it may not be Mary's-
that her third album will not fly without him.
Though it happened relatively quietly (compared to the attention given Puff's every other move over the
past two years), the split has had resounding repercussions for both of their careers. Nobody quite knows
why they went their separate ways, but whatever differences existed couldn't be resolved, not for a single
song. Mary split from Uptown Entertainment in 1995 when Andre Harrell left the company for Motown and Heavy D became president. On the new album, Hank Shocklee, senior vice president of black music at MCA,Mary's new label, granted her virtual autonomy for Share My World.
"The goal was not to fill the shoes of Puff," says Shocklee. "I acted as a navigator. Before, Mary was feeling her way through it; now, she knows what's she's doing. I just helped her realize her vision."
Even Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the power producers behind Miss Jackson and a million others, felt intimidated by the relationship Mary and Puff shared. "They had done such great work together," Jimmy Jam says from his car phone in Minneapolis. "I really loved My Life. I mean, I was over the top with that record. I'd go around playing it to anyone with a stereo. When they first approached us about working on Share My World, we thought maybe we didn't want to do it. We didn't want to spoil what they already had."
For his part, Puff realizes what he's lost in Mary. "No one has sounded as perfect for the music I produce as
Mary. My tracks were totally made for her, and she was made for my tracks."
As A&R at Uptown, Puff had to prove himself with Father MC. Once he gave Andre a hit with "I'll Do4 U" - in 1990 (with Mary, then a stagnant vocalist under contract with the label, contributing background vocals), he got a shot at Jodeci. But besides his bumping remix of "Come & Talk to Me"-made hip hop soul by lifting EPMD's anthemic "You're a Customer"-his contribution to Jodeci was mostly an image thing: He made them look like him.
Mary was his prize. And they were indeed perfect for one another. Where Puff was all exhibition, Mary was reserved and slightly cagey. They both believed that style was created on hot Wednesday nights, on the 125th Street strip where ghetto trends like Catholic-figure gold charms and one-leg-up sweats were improvised. And, of course, they were both born stars.
"What made Mary a star was she really didn't give a fuck, 'cause she'd been through so much," says Puff from his car phone in Manhattan. "She's so totally distinct." After we hang up, he calls back-he has something
to add about Mary. "She's the greatest artist I've ever worked with."
"He said that about me?" Mary asks, surprised. We are waiting for a table at her favorite Midtown Italian
restaurant, and already I've broken my agreement with her publicist. No mentioning Puff, I promised. No KCi
(or even her overplayed relationship with Case-who neither of us ever mentioned). "Puff is family; he'll always be family, even ifI see him at a party and don't speak to him."
Share My World is certainly no regression or by any means a lesser album than her previous two. Mary'svoice is stronger than ever, her songwriting more sophisticated. She sings with live bands. And she sings from the very depths of her sou\. Mary has grown, and it's apparent. She's more spiritual, more balanced. Her heart seems safe. The album is no way a failure.
But the connectedness, the congruity that held My Life and, to a lesser extent, What's the 411? together, is missing. Because Mary worked with almost a half-dozen producers-including Babyface, R. Kelly, and D'Angelo and recorded in almost as many cities, the album feels more like a project. My Life felt like an offering. Or an outpouring. Like it was written in her bedroom. It sounded as if it were recorded in one long, confessional night; it felt completely intimate.
"I'm nervous about this record like I was nervous about the first one," she says. "I just hope people accept it-it's all me."
When Mary's not in the studio, she likes to visit her family down South, in Savannah, Ga. "I went through
a period when I didn't care about me; so what the world thought was irrelevant," she remembers in measured,
even tones, careful not to trivialize her old pain. Her healing process has been arduous but holistic. Instead
of projecting pain, her eyes shine. "From looking at meo n TV, a lot of people would come up to me and be,
like, 'Are you all right?' And I'd be, like, Damn, how the fuck they know I ain't feeling right?" (It's those open windows, sis. Wide-open.) "I'm happy now. I just feel...free. Like I'm having a second childhood."
"EVERYTHING'S NOT ABOUT ME,"
SAYS MARY, KIND OF DEFENSIVELY.
IF IT'S RELATING TO YOU,
I COULD BE SiNGING ABOUT YOU.
I COULBD BE SINGING ABOUT ALL OF US -
WHICH I AM."
Still, one song on Share My World that seems particularly honest is the wonderfully orchestrated "The Love
I Never Had." It's a sweeping, mournful reflection on a relationship that she just couldn't get right. Her voice
is staggering and powerful, and she's backed by an Ohio Players-like band, horns and everything. Jimmy Jam
says the song was completed in two takes. "You don't know how hard I tried .... " she sings. "I don't understand /
Why you can't be my man."
Mary has been so guarded and private with her personal life (she's repeatedly refused to quantify her relationship
with K-Ci in interviews), only to spell out her relationships on wax. Why? "Everything's not about me," she says, kind of defensively. "If it's relating to you, I could be singing about you. I could be singing about all of us, which I am." Word. When My Lije was released, I was suffering the most intense heartbreak I've ever known. I remember giving my lover the album as a gift. He couldn't listen to it. "It's like Mary's talking to me for you," he told me. But never mind me, Mary still has yet to confess this whole K-Ci thing in print.
Next question. So how do you relate to Virgos? (She knows I'm one. I know K-Ci's one.) "Y'all are laid-back, sad. You're sad .... " she tells me. (Fuck. I've just been called sad by the woman once voted most in need of a hug. Got to get happy.) But back to the issue at hand.
Long pause."My first love was a Virgo." What was he like? I ask.
"My first love was K-Ci. That was my first real, real, like, in love." There's no triumphant feeling in getting this
rare admission on record. I am sad.
I remember being in the studio when Mary was recording the remix for "Love No Limit." Puff was getting impatient because she was almost two hours late. K-Ci's brother Jo Jo suggested he call K-Ci's house. When she and K-Ci finally arrived, they seemed like good friends. When Mary went into the booth to record her vocals, K-Ci stood behind Puff at the board and gave her gentle direction.
"Yeah, it was a working relationship," she says, remembering that session. "He would work with me, and I'd listen." And then, without a trace of bitterness, adds: "I guess some people can't deal with it when they're with someone who wants to learn; who wants to hear them. They're so used to dealing with somebody who can't hear anything. I guess K-Ci wasn't used to people who are sincere."
I'm surprised at how open Mary's being (forget that we're on our third round of drinks). In the past, she's closed down when it came time for a formal interview. She's even been downright mean to journalists. "Me?
Mean? Why you say that?"
Well, you a most got into a fight with Veronica Webb.
"Naw, naw .. .let me tell you the Veronica Webb story. Let me put everybody on about that, 'cause I never wanted to say nothing. But ... we was at the 'You Bring Me Joy' video, right? She was, like, 'What's up, girl!' I was, like, Whassup. She was corny. But I was, like, All right, I like her, she's cool. So she was, like, 'You want to go have some drinks?' I was, like, Shit, you offering me a drink? why not? So I'm thinking we drinking together. So she's, like, 'Let's go to the liquor store.' So I order a bottle of Malibu rum, and she got one too. And she sat there and got blasted with me and went back and wrote an interview about me being a drunk."
No, she wrote an article about you drinking her under the table.
"Honey was the first to offer. If a motherfucker ask me to drink, drink with me.''
Practically everyone I-poll says that Mary reminds them of Billie Holiday. "She's got that pain in her voice," says Jimmy Jam. But Aretha is the one who comes to mind for me. The men who shaped her career the loneliness, the strength. The songs that seem like prayers. There was even the early criticism that she wasn't a great singer. Sarah Vaughan, with her perfect pitch and ability to mimic a trumpet, was the standard then. Aretha sang from her gut and invented notes when her emotions dictated.
"They said Aretha couldn't sing?" Mary asks in disbelief.
Well, they say she didn't hit all the right notes, I say.
"Well, I know I don't hit 'em then. But I think that someone with perfect, perfect-sounding pitch sounds like they've been trained' to sing straight through the song. And they do exactly that. But you take somebody like Mavis Staples; she's got the illest voice I've ever heard, 'cause her voice is like, whatever. She brings it straight from the streets.''
For Mary, whose collaborations with Puff have come to define what "from the streets" means, authenticity
is worth its weight in links. The process of making music has to be organic for her, or it simply isn't worth it. "I
write how I feel. Certain songs .. .I let my spirit get into the song, and it will write the song. It comes from here,"
she puts her hand to her chest and clenches her fist. "I'm not saying I can blow everybody away. It's just .. .I feel
what I sing.''
"Mary's tone is thick and full," says Hank Shocklee. "She's almost precise, tonal wise. Like a synthesizer or
a keyboard. She's got music in her voice; what I call a sampling voice. It's easy to·distinguish the voices in rap,
'cause they're antimelodic: Mary also has that kind of recognizability, but she's a singer.
"There's so much I learned about Mary from working with her," he says. "She's extremely intelligent, real quick, has a nearly photographic memory. And she knows and loves black music. She knows everybody and not just their hits. She knows their off songs. She's like a DJ. There aren't that many producers who know . what she knows.''
When Mary is called a hip hop singer, it has to do with her music memory as much as her sensibility and posture. The songs she covers, or in some cases samples, are ones she and La Tonya grew up singing. It was nothing if not completely courageous to cover Aretha ("Natural Woman") and Chaka Khan ("Sweet Thing"). On Share My World, she covers "Our Love," one of Natalie Cole's greats. "I sang that song at a talent show when I was seven years old," she says.
I ask Mary to tell me the first words that come to mind when I throw out the names of legendary musicians. I name people who've had an obvious influence on her. Marvin. "Melodic. Depressed.'' Candi Staton. "Went through hell with a man. Strong.'' Chaka. "Buck wild." Roy Ayers. "Worldly-not in a material way, but like he's doing it for all of us." Billie. "Dead."
I lower my eyes. I feel like I want to fight. She continues. "Like Phyllis Hyman. Dead. I know that's hard. But the reason Phyllis and Billie are dead is 'cause they thought they could turn to a man or a drug for the love they needed." Shocklee had told me Mary was wise.
"I'm not trying to preach, but that love, the love that makes you able to look in the mirror and be happy, that comes.from God. It's gonna manifest ... .'' She begins to stutter, moved by the profound kind of love she's describing, mourning Billie and Phyllis. "The world ain't ready ... but then again, maybe they are.''
Certainly God's love is divine. The changes in Mary some virtually imperceptible; others obvious-are proof of Her almighty power. But churches are filled with black women who surrendered their souls and buried that other, more dangerous love deep in the recesses of their memories. Then there are the lonely legends like Nina Simone, bitter and brilliant-and unfulfilled. Mary wants it all for us. Not giving up on that kind of Real Love ....
Does love always have to hurt?
"No. People get the meaning of love mixed up. The meaning of love to me is being friends. Not, where you
been? where you going? Not possessive. Friendship is love to me. 'Cause in the beginning it's respect. It's like
laying back when a person don't want to see you. Not being, like, You gon' see me anyway."
One of the most real lines you ever uttered was,"I get so nervous when I come around and it seems like you don't want me there."When that happened to me I couldn't chill, I started calling, like, Is it over?! I just blew it.
"Naw, that's when you really get cool. That's when you back off and relax ... and get cool. 'Cause you never
know what's going on with a person. That's what I had to learn.''
So you're patient?
"Yeah, now I am."