|
 |
Browse Bands by Name
|
|
Or enter a band name below to search:
|
 Bands Main
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 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."
|
|
|
|
Photo: Getty Images
|
|
|
|
