Even as she’s gone Hollywood (earning an Academy Award nomination for 2017’s Mudbound), Mary J. Mary (1999) saw her move toward a more classic sound, though 2001’s smash “Family Affair” swung back toward hip-hop that fertile tension has remained in her music since. Blige’s life was never separate from her art, and fans have followed her through addiction, marriage, divorce and therapy, connecting with songs like “Not Gon’ Cry” and “No More Drama” out of deep identification: here was an artist who sang women’s realities as they were almost never presented in popular music-and who always came out stronger. She and Sean Combs crafted her 1992 debut, What’s the 411?, which spawned the ubiquitous and beloved jam “Real Love” and helped set the template for R&B’s marriage to hip-hop. On August 17, 1999, Bliges fourth album, titled Mary was released. The album spawned one single, 'Misty Blue'. That summer, she embarked on the Share My World Tour, which resulted in a Gold-certified live album released later that year, simply titled The Tour. Her voice is elastic, scrappy and versatile, with more than a hint of world-weary grit, and when a chance recording of Anita Baker’s “Caught Up in the Rapture” came before Uptown Records execs in 1988, the label immediately snapped her up as its youngest (and first female) signee. In early 1998, Blige won an American Music Award for 'Favorite Soul/R&B Album'. Born Mary Jane Blige in the Bronx in 1971, Blige was raised mainly in Yonkers, New York, where she grew up listening to the greats: Aretha, Chaka and Gladys Knight. Dubbed the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul in the ’90s, Blige came off as tough and streetwise (unlike many of her contemporaries), and she could go toe to toe with rappers, including JAY Z, Method Man and more recently Kendrick Lamar. Blige is that rare singer who can channel your pain-and then drag you onto the dance floor to sweat it away.
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