by Little Roman

Created on: November 02, 2007

My daughter introduced me to Mary J. Blige music back in the early nineties, with her second album "My Life" It was the first time I heard her beautiful soulful voice, a combination R&B and hip-hop. Today, my daughter has reminisce to me about how her friends would teases her because she knew most of The Police and String's songs when they played on the radio. This was some of the rock music I played when my daughter was younger at home. One day driving home with a co-worker I had a Mary J Bilge's Cd playing in my car, my co-worker was surprised that I knew who she was. In 2003, Mary J Blige and String did a duet together on a song called "Whenever I call your name" two different generations of great singers singing together. Mary J Blige has a voice that at times you can feel it deep inside your soul with her songs.

Mary was raised in Yonkers, New York, living in the housing projects in a bad neighborhood, her mother raising Mary and her sister. She would show her talent for singing at the early age of seven and by the time she was eighteen, she had a recording contact. A few years later, her first album was released in 1992 " What's 411" her album received good reviews from the critics and her fans loved the mix combination of her R&B and Hip Hop music. The record company wanted her to have a bad girl image, but you could see that touch of beauty she has. Many called her the "Queen of Hip Hop Soul" and the new Aretha Franklin. Beside having a beautiful soulful voice, her songs naturally seem like it's coming from her heart. Most of her songs are about the pain that women endure in their lives with relationships with men. The 2001 songs like "No More Drama" she sings of no more pain and no more drama in her life, a beautiful song with a little help from the theme of the daytime soap "The Young of the Restless" this theme starts in beginning of the song and at the end of the song, it works and was timed beautifully. Also from the 2001 album " No More Drama" Mary showed a powerful hip hop dance beat with " Family Affair".

If your one of the few that is not familiar with Mary J Bilge's music, a good sampler of a compilation of her hits would be the album " Reflections- A Retrospective". This will have to do until any future box sets Cds are done on Mary J Bilge. This is still a good album to introduce you to Mary's music, with early hits song such as; "Real Love", "I'm Going Down", "Not Gon' Cry" and other hits. This album also has four new songs; "Reflection (I

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