She begins Mary with the lush Lauryn-produced “All That I Can Say,” singing, “Loving you is wonderful / Something like a miracle.” Two songs later, on “Beautiful Ones,” she sings, “With your love, maybe in my life / You know, we can stop the rain,” a direct answer to her classic theme song, “Everyday It Rains.” Of course, there are songs about sadness, like the brilliant strength-in-pain anthem “The Love I Never Had” - where she blares, “I gotta wake up!” while a Jimmy Jam-and-Terry Lewis-produced live band funks behind her - as well as the deep ballad “Your Child” and the spectacular “Memories.” But “Memories,” with its hot Timbaland-inspired track and junglish drum line, doesn’t match the sadness of which Mary speaks. In 1997, she recorded and released her third album titled, Share My World. Following this album, Blige’s relationship with Uptown records came to an end and she later signed to MCA records. This latest record is her most superstar-packed - she welcomes aboard Lauryn Hill (producing and singing backup, not rhyming), Sir Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Babyface, Eric Clapton and ex-boyfriend K-Ci Hailey of K-Ci and JoJo - but with the late excision of the stunning “Sincerity,” featuring DMX and Nas, there’s a conspicuous void.īlige seems to have moved away from the Terry McMillan once-again-he’s-breaking-my-heart mantra to, perhaps, an Oprah love-your-spirit ethos. Blige received a Grammy nomination for the ‘Best R&B Album‘. On her second album, the emotional autobiography My Life, there was a Keith Murray cameo and a slew of Puffy-produced interpolations.
On her first and third studio albums - the genre-creating What’s the 411? and the merely stellar Share My World - she tapped a host of rhymers: Busta Rhymes, Grand Puba, Lil’ Kim, Nas. At first it seems a bit strange: There’s only one MC on Mary J.
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