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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).
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."
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Photo: MTV News
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