Mary J. Blige

Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York
Height: 5' 7"
Home: Yonkers. New York
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Blond (Naturally Brown)

QUEEN of Hip-Hop Soul Mary J. Blige came from humble beginnings. Born in the Bronx, she spent her early childhood years in Savannah, Georgia. Her family returned to New York when she was five years old, and at the age of seven, she first began singing in a church choir. Though Blige has made reference to happy times in the church, for the most part she experienced a tough upbringing in Yonkers' Slowbam projects, which were nicknamed "Slow Bomb" by their tenants, and for good reason. Music became a ready and reliable salve during hard times, and she found solace in listening to both her mother's favorite records--Otis Redding, Gladys Knight, Al Green, and Donny Hathaway--and the hip-hop beats that rocked house parties in her neighborhood. As a teenager, Blige began landing solos in the church choir and in school talent shows, and when she was seventeen, friends encouraged her to cut a demo tape at a local White Plains shopping mall. Her stepfather passed the resulting recording, a cover of Anita Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture," to someone who knew someone, and before Blige knew it, a very interested Uptown Records C.E.O. Andre Harrell contacted her by phone.

But it was Sean "Puffy" Combs, an enterprising young producer at Uptown, who helped Blige perfect the sound and the image that would soon crown her the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul." Her 1992 debut album What's the 411? melded an R&B sensibility with a hip-hop pedigree, and generated a No. 1 single with "Real Love." Blige says her musical roots converged to create her unique style. "I grew up on old R&B and soul, then as I got older I got into the block parties. That's why my voice when I sing is almost like a rapper, on the beat." Her streetwise attitude quickly earned her a reputation--she was notorious for being late to photo shoots, refusing to do interviews, and in general being a bit too salty--that charmed her fans all the more.

After an unremarkable 1993 album of remixes, Blige surpassed everyone's expectations with 1994's My Life, which was also executive-produced by Combs, who by then had become famous as the man behind both Blige and Jodeci. On My Life, Blige debuted as a lyricist--quite a good one, as it turned out--as she smoothed some of her hard edges and delivered emotionally raw lyrics that made the album an instant hip-hop classic. The songs "All Night Long," "You Gotta Believe," "My Life," and "You Bring Me Joy" cemented her place as a hip-hop icon and inspired a gaggle of imitators. By virtue of the record's phenomenal popularity, she was finally able to move her family out of the projects. My Life earned Blige a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album, and she took home an award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for her duet with Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man on his single "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need To Get By."

Blige took a break from recording following My Life and did some touring, though she did contribute a track to the wildly successful Waiting To Exhale soundtrack. As a sign of her popularity, the single "Not Gon' Cry" went all the way to No. 2, even though Blige was but one of a number of superstars on the album which featured Whitney Houston, TLC, Brandy, and Toni Braxton.

When it came time to return to the studio in 1996, Blige did so without her longtime collaborators. Andre Harrell had abandoned Uptown to take over Motown Records, and Puffy Combs, whose fame had grown significantly due to the success of his protégé, the late Notorious B.I.G., had launched his own label, Bad Boy. Neither Combs nor Blige has spoken about the details of their split, but it stands to reason that someone of Blige's strong character would want to act as her own executive producer. She did just that for her third record, bringing in a slew of big-name producers for Share My World. Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Babyface, R. Kelly, and Malik Pendleton were among the contributors to the album, and Blige also brought in friends like Nas, who shared vocals on the first single, "Love Is All We Need." Share My World was released in April of 1997 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Some critics found the album a step down from her previous work, but Blige's subjects remain true to her, and the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul continues to reign.