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by Crystal Kupper If anyone has legitimate street cred, it’s Mary J. Blige. Mary Jane was only four when her jazz musician father abandoned his wife and two young daughters. The next year, Blige was molested by a family friend. That chain of events propelled Blige onto a decades-long path of self-destruction. “[The assault] followed me all my life,” she told VH1’s Behind the Music. “The shame of thinking my molestation was my fault — it led me to believe I wasn’t worth anything.” Despite Blige’s mother Cora’s dedication to her family, exiting the slums seemed impossible. “Every day I would be getting into fights over whatever. You always had to prove yourself to keep from getting robbed or jumped,” she told Essence. “Growing up in the projects is like living in a barrel of crabs. If you try to get out, one of the other crabs tries to pull you down.” One bright spot in Blige’s life was the local House of Prayer Pentecostal Church. Her vocal talent, showcased in the youth choir, quickly won her praise. “People in church would say ‘You should do something with your voice,’ ” she told Newsweek. “And I’d be like ‘What? I am living in the projects in Yonkers. What am I going to do with my voice?’ ” Blige discovered the answer at a White Plains, NY shopping mall at age 17. She had just dropped out of a performing arts high school where she had studied music, but she still enjoyed singing. At a karaoke-style recording studio, she belted out Anita Baker’s “Caught Up In The Rapture,” then left with her friends. Now a high school dropout holding down menial part-time jobs, Mary J. Blige’s life was going nowhere fast, she thought. She was wrong. Through mutual friends, that recording eventually made its way to Andre Harrell, an executive with Uptown Records. He signed the talented youngster immediately. Blige’s first album, What’s the 411? was released in 1992, mixing traditional R&B with gospel, rap, hip-hop, and high-tech funk. The infectious combination won the young singer an instant horde of adoring fans, reaching double-platinum status and selling more than two million copies. She tried to mask it with drinking and drugs, and then a relationship that turned abusive. Her sophomore debut My Life showcased that intensely personal struggle, earning Blige her first Grammy nomination. From there, Blige’s star power grew swiftly. The “delicate ghetto-princess songstress,” released several more smashingly successful albums, including Share My World and Mary. The first batch of her nine Grammy awards rolled in, along with her first of four American Music Awards. Yet it wasn’t enough, and Blige’s descent into drugs, alcohol, and self-loathing quickened. Enter Kendu Isaacs, a recording industry executive. The two met in 2000, and though Isaacs eventually became Blige’s manager and husband, his most important role came when he encouraged the searching performer to turn her life over to Jesus Christ and guided her toward sobriety. “I think when you hit rock bottom — everyone hits rock bottom — they want to know where God is,” she told Buzzine. “… I believe God works through people. He sends people, and that’s what happened. I hit a place where I needed help, and I just started praying for Him to send someone to help me. You can’t do it alone, because when you don’t have any strength, you don’t have any strength to do it.” Yet the temptation to numb past hurts with a drink remained. Before a performance, Blige overheard Isaacs saying he was going to leave his then-girlfriend if she came home drunk like usual. ...Determined to not let that happen, Blige went to a friend’s home afterward where she was promptly offered alcohol. Remarkably, she declined and went home sober. The next morning, Blige heard the news: Aaliyah, another hit-making R&B singer and Blige’s close friend, had died in a plane crash. It was enough to bring her solidly into a relationship with God. “God is my mommy, my daddy. That’s the only thing that’ll keep my head up. If I don’t remember who I am in Him, I’m done,” she told Oprah. Blige married Isaacs in December 2003, and from there the hits and awards piled up. Today, she claims eights multi-platinum albums, selling over 50 million albums worldwide, and is the sole artist with Grammy awards in the pop, gospel, rap, and R&B categories. The singer’s latest endeavours involve the theatre as well as the concert hall. Blige’s song “The Living Proof” appeared on the soundtrack of the 2011 hit movie The Help. Then, on Nov. 21, she released My Life II, The Journey Continues to critical acclaim. “It’s not a competitor. It’s a sequel. In an extension of how far we’ve come,” she says on the album’s intro. “Not saying that pain doesn’t exist no more in our life, but now we understand how to navigate.” Next on the docket — acting in the theatrical release of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages and as the lead in Nina, a biopic of musician Nina Simone. Both films are set for 2012 debuts. “When I gave my life to Jesus Christ … I found out who I am. I’m a child of God,” she told Oprah. photo by Markus Klinko and Indrani [LLN-Online] [Adopt-a-Block] [Newsbriefs]
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