Mary Jane Blige

A hero is someone who inspires you. It could be anyone from a famous hip-hop singer or a rapper to a family member. In this case my hero happens to be the queen of hip-hop and R&B. She is the three-time Grammy award-winning American R&B, soul, and hip-hop singer, songwriter, producer and actress Mary Jane Blige.

She learned how to deal with the pain through music. Her lyrics became her escape. She expressed her feelings and put her pain in the notes of music, such as "Enough Crying" and in the lyrics of "Take Me as I Am." Mary J. Bilge happens to be my hero - the person who inspires me to do anything, if I put my mind to it. Mary J. Blige was born on January 11, 1971 in the Bronx, New York. Mary was exposed to music at a very young age because of her parents. Her father was a jazz musician and her mother was a nurse. When Mary was only four years old, her father left the family, leaving her mother to take care of her and her older sister Latonya. Shortly after her father left, Mary’s family then moved to Yonkers, New York, into the projects, which was a dangerous neighborhood. Living in a corrupt neighborhood like this, Mary got more into music. She joined the church choir. At age seven she won a contest in singing “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. While Mary started to grow up and enter high school, she began to experiment with drugs. During this year, 2006, in February, Mary made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show. On the show Mary revealed many heartbreaking memories from her past. When she was a little girl she was sexually assaulted by a close family friend. Not only did they discuss her sexual assault but the sudden drug use. What happened is that when Mary had a relationship with K-Ci Hailey, he abused her many times. He introduced her to drugs and alcohol, which then led to constant abuse of the drugs. She became a stay-at-home drunk and a so called “druggie.” With all the abuse and the drugs, Mary buried herself in food. Her weight gain got out of control. She hired a personal trainer. A significant change occurred, not only in her weight to get her figure back, but also in attitude.

Mary dropped out of high school during her drug abuse years. In her mother’s apartment in Yonkers, she earned money by doing hair. She stayed doing hair until Mary’s mother's boyfriend took a cassette with Mary’s voice on it and sent it to someone in the music industry. The A&R runner for Uptown records Jeff Redd sent the tape to the CEO Andre Harrell. In 1989 Mary had a meeting with Harrell, then signed to his label, and then she became the company’s youngest artist. For Mary’s first years in her career, she did backup singing for some of the music artists.

In 1991 she sang “I’ll Do 4 You” by Father MC. Afterwards she finally made an album in 1992 called “What’s the 411?” On the album she had worked with many producers, such as Sean “Puffy” Combs, Tony Dofat, mark Morales, Donald aka “DeVante Swing” DeGrate and “K-Ci” Hailey, whom she had a long relationship with that lasted over six years. The album came out on July 28, 1992. The song “You Remind Me” on the album became one of the popular songs that year. It was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Then in the fall, “Real Love” became her second number one song on the R&B charts. On November 29, 1994, a second album was released called "My Life" with Sean Combs, the rapper well known as P Diddy. This album was not like "What’s the 411?" It had more feeling and most of the songs were written by Mary herself. This album sold over three million copies, making “My Life” a multi-Platinum album.

Mary J. BligeAmber [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]pedia/commons/7/7f/MaryJBligeLive2010.jpg

Even though Mary was having huge success with her albums, she admitted her drug use, alcoholism, and depression because of the relationship with Hailey. In 1995 she started working on other projects, such as Aretha Franklin’s soundtrack “You Make me Feel Like a Natural Woman.” Afterwards she made a huge hit duet with Method Man called “I’ll Be There for You.” Later that year Mary won her very first Grammy award for the duet with Method Man.

Mary’s third album came out on April 22nd, 1997, called Share My World. In this album she worked with many artists thanks to P. Diddy, such as R. Kelly, Babyface, Chucky Thompson, Terry Lewis and Rodney Jerkins. Share My World sold over four million copies in the United States and it sold over five million worldwide. There were four hit singles on the Billboard 200, called “I Can Love You,” “Love Is All We Need,” “Everything,” and “Seven Days.” A year after that album in 1998, she won an American Music Award for Favorite Soul and R&B album. Then during the summer she started a tour for the album Share my World.

Mary J. Blige created another album called Mary in 1999. She decided to make this album a little bit softer than her usual hip-hop albums. It showed that Mary had a down-to-earth style as well as the hip-hop street smart woman we are used to. This album stayed popular throughout the 1970s and '80s. She had popular artists such as Aretha Franklin and Elton John. This album really opened her career. She had offers to work with the great Stevie Wonder and George Michael on their album "Ladies & Gentlemen: The best of George Michael." In December the company made the album a double disk: one with her songs and the second CD with the music videos to her hit songs on the record. This album was also another success. It sold over two million copies and it went Double Platinum.

Mary J. BligeAngela George [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia CommonsOther albums were released as well, such as No More Drama, which sold over five million copies worldwide and became a Certified Double Platinum. This album helped her win another Grammy for “Best Female R&B Vocal Performance,” but it was mainly for her song “He Think I Don’t know.” Mary’s album Love and Life was not one of her best albums. The hit single of the album was “Love at First Sight” featuring Method Man. Love and Life became a Platinum record but it was one of her lowest-selling records. The critics and fans took this album as a disappointment out of the rest of her albums. Mary says that she and Diddy struggled and argued constantly during this album, which caused it to be such a disappointment of Love and Life. Her latest album was released in 2005 called, “The Breakthrough.” The Breakthrough was a most definite success. It sold over 730,000 copies just during its first week. She worked with many artists on this album such as Rodney Jerkins, will.i.am, Bryan Michael Cox, 9th wonder, Jimmy Jan and Terry Lewis, Dre and Vidal and Raphael Saadiq. Her album became one of the Top R&B/Hip-hop albums and on the Billboard 200 charts. Her hit singles were “Be Without You,” “Enough Crying,” and “Take Me as I Am.” The Breakthrough has sold over three million copies in the United States and six million world-wide. Mary has made about seven or eight albums throughout her career and only one disappointment, but most of them were a success. Her lyrics have touched the hearts of many people and will continue to grow.

Mary J. Blige has worked very hard to get where she is today; she’s lived a difficult life. Throughout her career she has gone through her ups and downs from physical abuse, mental abuse, and drug and alcohol use, and she still stayed strong. She has inspired many with her hip-hop beats and street sensibility, soulful vocals and intelligence. Mary J. Blige is now known as “The Queen of Hip-hop and Soul.” She will continue on her music career, reaching out with her lyrics to everyone who supports her
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