SINGING IN THE RAIN
Words By Andre J Durall
Photography By Markus Klinko
Tired of being tired, Mary J. Blige is ready to be happy. With her latest album, Reminisce, and a spellbinding performance at the BET Telethon, the Queen of Hip Hop Soul is still preaching "No More Drama," challenging herself and the world to be happy and becoming the official voice of our generation.
If you wanted to see the pain, anger and horror that African Americans felt in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina transformed into song, all you had to do was experience Mary J. Blige's performance at the BET S.O.S. (Saving OurSelves) Telethon in September. Her performance could have, quite possibly, served as the last word on the subject. Mary touched our souls. She echoed our frustration and channeled our broken spirit through a song ("Our Life"). Buddhists would call this a vibration. Christians would say she's feeling the spirit. New Agers would describe it as empathic. It's what urban America calls rhythm and blues.
If you didn't see it, let me help you experience it. Mary sings with deep conviction. Her body shakes. Her eyes are closed and teary. She bobs her head testifying in disbelief. But what really channels the anger and helplessness of the black community is when the Queen of Hip Hop Soul wails: "If you look into our liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!" She holds the note on 'life' for about 30 seconds. The room goes wild and Erykah Badu, Tommy Hilfiger, Queen Latifah, and many others stare in paralyzed amazement, some weeping. In a matter of minutes, Mary J. Blige has once again created an anthem for America in distress. She, along with other celebrities like Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons, Alicia Keys and R. Kelly, also helped BET raise upwards of $11 million for relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Mary created an anthem for America once before with "No More Drama." Her sonic plea for peace gained national popularity right after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. Mary sang about overcoming pain, tears, and suffering. A cutting-edge video featuring three average people going through hard times and cameos by Diddy and Mariah Carey put the song in heavy rotation. The song's release just happened to coincide with the frightening events of 9/11. The song helped calm the fears of young and old who were living in a fearful (and terrorized) United States of America. "No more drama in my life," she sang. "I don't ever want to hurt again!"
Four years later and Mary is definitely still fighting to be strong and help other people overcome their suffering. This time she's giving voice to the thousands of survivors who used to call Louisiana and Mississippi home and are now homeless, unemployed and otherwise down-and-out. "I couldn't believe that this was happening in America," Mary says about the widespread devastation and displacement after Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast. "I am not a big TV person, but I could not turn off CNN. I felt every drop of their pain! I wanted to do something. I was flying back from Toronto after performing with U2 and I started writing 'Our Life' on the plane. I don't know where the words were coming from, but I just kept writing. It's devastating and I was dealing with their devastation. I was crying writing the words to the song. When I was performing, it was like my body left the building."
"Our Life" (a restyling of her 1994 song "My Life" from her critically acclaimed, sophomore album of the same name) is simply a freedom song. Many of Mary's most popular songs have talked about her personal pain and suffering. Her fans feel Mary. But with "Our Life" and "No More Drama," she tapped into the consciousness of her community and the rest of the world. These types of songs capture a moment in history. Mary's joints, like Aretha Franklin's "Respect," Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence," and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," captured a mood and will now leave an indelible mark on pop culture.
"I can't even imagine what the victims of Hurricane Katrina were going through," Mary explains about the telethon performance. "I relate to what they are going through spiritually. I've been through that. In the spiritual realm, I've lost a lot. There is nothing left for these people to do but get up! Get up in your mind, body and spirit. You gotta lose yourself and build up your spirit to get through. No matter what kind of life you had before, what are you going to do now?"
This is a question Mary asks herself all the time. She identifies with the survivors of Hurricane Katrina because she has had to struggle in life physically, emotionally and psychologically. Her latest album, Reminisce, is a retrospective look at her career, and it takes us on the highs and lows of Mary's life experiences. The collection reflects pain, joy and the quest for love. "It's about challenging yourself to lose yourself so you can become selfless," Mary explains. "It's not all about me."
On Mary's sophomore album My Life, the Queen also sang a song called "Be Happy": "All I really want is to be happy/And to find a love that's mine/It would be so sweet." A decade later, Mary is much closer to her goal. "Where we are with Mary right now is that we have gotten to a point where we can say we are really enjoying life and really, really happy. I am basically learning how to enjoy this journey without complaining and going through a whole bunch of stuff," says the 34-year-old diva, who is happily married to her "best friend" Kendu Isaacs. "People like me don't really feel right unless it feels wrong. I'm learning how to believe what I am saying. I'm still in the process of breaking through."
With this new album, Mary takes her fans along on her deeply personal journey. It's a celebration of survival. "I choose to be happy. I choose to cater to the good side of life," says the once troubled woman. "The good side of life has been good to me. I choose to be happy in spite of what the hell is going on in my life. The whole time I was recording, every single day, I was being challenged by my biggest issues: anger, sadness, all kinds of horrible things."
For the victims of Katrina, Mary suggests the process of healing that has gotten her through. "I get up and pray. I feed my spirit. I pray that they figure out what keeps them going and lean on that."
