60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Real Love”—Mary J. Blige

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Rob explores the making of Mary J. Blige and Method Man’s “I’ll Be There For You / You’re All I Need,” the pain in Mary’s music and real life, and much more when looking back at “Real Love.” Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Leslie Streeter Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Audio Intern: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, just a quick note to say that we will be taking one week off for the holiday, et cetera. Just one week, so we will return promptly on Wednesday, July 13th. Please enjoy yourselves in the meantime, and we'll talk then. Thanks. They met for the first time at Roseland Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan in the mid-90s. He had a big afro and a brown leather coat because, he says, We was bums. We ain't give a fuck. That's Staten Island for you. They'd both been invited to a party thrown by the notorious BIG. No word on what she was wearing, but it's safe to assume she didn't

give a fuck either. That's yonkers for you. Here's what Method Man did say in an interview with Complex. He says, I met Mary that night and she told me she wakes up to bring the pain every goddamn day. I was like, well, shit. I love the shit out of Mary J. Blige. I came to bring the pain, hardcore from the brain. Let's go inside my gasroom plane. Find out my mental, based on instrumental, record, so I can write monumental. But who doesn't? What a lovely image this is. Mary J. Blige, Intergalactic Diva, R&B superstar, professional wearer of sunglasses, the queen of hip-hop soul, if you go in for that sort of thing, with a clock radio next to her bed. And every morning or mid-afternoon, it clicks on and starts blasting Method Man's 1994 hit,

Bring the Pain and her eyes slowly open. Good morning, gorgeous. It's like a Groundhog Day, how Bill Murray wakes up to I Got You Babe at 6 a.m. every goddamn day. except this is like 10,000 times cooler. I just picture her brushing her teeth to this. Methods, I'm not the king, but niggas is decaf. I stick them for the cream. Check it.

Bring the Pain is the first single off Method Man's first solo album to Cal, which came out in late 1994. The first Wu-Tang solo project after Enter the Wu-Tang 36 Chambers, turned Staten Island into Shaolin in 93. The first Wu-Tang project after Method Man. man himself had threatened to take your nuts, just your nuts, and bang them shits with a spike fucking bat. To Cal, you will be relieved. Here is rife with gonna take your nuts energy.

This is a song called Biscuits. It's not about breakfast or it's not about your breakfast. Mary J. Blige cutting up strawberries for her oatmeal listening to biscuits. To Cal though is also rife briefly with a quite different and equally striking. sort of energy on a song called All I Need. There are a few things that's forever, my ladies, we can make more or make babies. Back when I was nothing, you made a brother feel like he was sucking. That's where I'm with you to this day, boo no fronting.

It's fantastic that his sentiment can change so dramatically, while the malevolent vibe itself doesn't change at all. Do you think someone somewhere has proposed marriage, like gotten down on one knee? etc. While Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with was playing in the background, statistically, that's very likely, right? I should have done that. Talking to Complex about writing All I Need, Method Man says, I was recording my album on the road, and we lived in San Francisco for about three weeks. We had little apartments out there. Being out on the road so long, I was missing my girl, so I used my money and flew her out.

Me and Rizza had adjoining rooms, so he's in there making the beat. And I swear on everything I love, I wrote that record right there while she was lying next to me asleep in the bed. End quote. That detail is really doing it for me today. Method Man writing a love song to his girl, but doing it very quietly so as not to disturb her. I'm a walk these dogs so we can live in a fat ass crib with thousands of kids world life. You don't need a ring to be my wife. Just be there for me and I'm going to make sure we be living in the fucking lap of luxury.

The thousands of kids part always jars me, though. That's a lot of kids. Three kids in my experience, it's a lot of kids. You know what we need? We need an All I Need remix. We need Mary J. Blige on an All I Need remix. I wonder if Mary J. Blige would be interested in doing an All I Need remix. So when this duet was brought to my attention, I mean, I was like, are you kidding me?

I jumped out the window. The studio that night was amazing because it was your birthday, Matt. I wouldn't know. Yeah, it was your birthday. It was there. Ghost was there. Everybody was there. Yeah, that was nice.

I love Method Man's little, yeah, it was nice there. Ghost Face Killer was there. Yeah, it was nice. Just the sweetest dude. This is Mary and Method Man talking to Vulture doing a COVID lockdown era Vulture Festival joint video interview in 2020. 50 Cent is in there as well, smiling in his little box between Mary's box and Meth's box. Mary and Meth were co-starring in a power spinoff.

Apparently when Mary gets excited about something, she jumps out a window. I'd like to add that Method Man is wearing on this video call a very nice blue v-nex sweater over a very nice blue button-down shirt. He looks great. I leave it up to you if this outfit means that he gives more of a fuck now or if it means that he gives less of a fuck than ever. There's no wrong answer. And Mary wasn't one bit nervous for one. Let me just tell you that. people used to come around me and some of the biggest stars i ain't going to say no names used to

come around and they used to be a little nerd mary was completely comfortable actually a method man also mentions being so excited about this duet that he jumped out the window they jumped out the window together that face-to-face confrontation just off top let me know that she's one of us in a sense metaphorically speaking like she gets it she's from where i'm from and she the fame had and change stuff. You know what I mean? And so, together, on his birthday, they made the greatest hip-hop love song ever born with the full title, I'll be there for you slash, you're all I need to get by. This is the Razor Sharp remix. Please don't tell Puff Daddy. We're not using the Puff Daddy remix.

And here, of course, Mary is evoking. She is embodying the 1963 Marvin Gay, Tammy Terrell duet, you're all I need to get by, arguably the best soul love song ever born. Tammy Terrell with an I'm going to take you nuts backdrop, just extraordinary. The video for this remix is essential viewing here, I think. Method Man's got the sort of milky eye, the white contact he used to wear in his left eye just to creep people out in music videos. It's a lovely note of dissonance amid the romance. He does the verses, she does the choruses. I don't watch this video or listen to this song and think that Mary Jane Blige and Method Man are addressing each other, professing their love for each other, not in real

life, not even as a daydream just for the space of this song, but it's still a love song. It's still one of the greatest love songs. Their love for each other is all the more powerful for it being platonic. Their platonic friendship gives them both the strength to express their undying romantic love for other people. They recognize each other. They lean on each other. She's from where he's from. For me, the most striking shot in the whole video. She's mostly singing up on a rooftop, crouched way down behind a little wall or hats pulled down over her eyes. And sometimes he's crouched down next to her, wrapping or just forcefully nodding his head alongside her. Like they're hunkered down hiding from a patrolling helicopter, hiding from the cops.

Or better yet, hiding from the paparazzi. They're hiding, but they're not scared. I'll be there for you. You're all I need to get by. It came out in April 1995. by August, the New York Times had declared it the number one summer song of love. That article quotes Method Man saying, The song is real.

It is, man. Guys can't even front. Everybody wants to be the toughest calling women hoes, whatever. That may be true for some women, but if that's the kind of women you're with, it's your own damn fault. Everybody's saying guns, guns, kill, kill, murder, murder, murder.

But there has to be someone in your life that you show your real life. love to. There has to be. The idea behind lots of rapper, singer duets is that they're crossover plays for both parties, right? The rapper wants the singer's audience and vice versa. And often the exchange is even more elemental than that. The rapper wants the R&B or pop singers implied softness and the singer wants the rappers implied hardness. But what makes I'll be there for you, you're all I need to get by, an all-timer is what Mary J. Blige and Method Man don't need from each other. They are both within themselves already the complete package. Method Man had already flaunted his softness and Mary had

already flaunted her hardness. Just because he's got a fat-ass crib with thousands of kids, doesn't mean he won't sew your asshole clothes and keep feeding you, and finie and finia. Just because she's looking for a real love doesn't mean she won't pull your brain out of your ass with a hanger if you try and fake it. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 69th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we're talking about

real love by Mary J. Blige from her 1992 debut album, What's the 4-1-1? Sometimes picking the song is easy on this show, and sometimes it's very much not. Three to five, legit, great options for Mary Jay Blige. The Method Man remix was one of them,

quite frankly. But this chorus is just undeniable. Yeah, the buoyancy of the piece, piano, the hardness and softness of the beat, the euphoria of those vocals stacking up, even if the real love in question is nowhere in sight. You could wake up to this chorus every day. You could hang somebody by their dick off a 12-story building to this chorus. All right, so it's 1988 or so at the Galleria Mall in Westchester in White Plains, New York, and they got one of those new karaoke machine recording booth situations.

You can make a tape of yourself singing whatever you want. I associate those singing booths with amusement parks, but malls in New York were cooler, I guess. And we got Mary Jane Blige, around 17 years old, tearing up Anita Baker's Caught in the Rapture. This is the actual Anita Baker original from 1986. I'm very sorry. I would love to play you the legit teenage Mary J. Blige Gallery a Mall version of Caught Up in the Rapture. But I don't believe it's out in the world. Can I confess to you that in general, I don't go in much for demos, outtakes, alternate takes, or even most of the bonus tracks, record companies slap onto reissues, remasters, and whatnot.

All the random of Fluvia, they toss in to pat it out and make it a double CD so they can charge you $25 for a record you already own. I guess those days are mostly over, but I'm still mad and I still don't care. But I would make an exception for the Gallery, a Mall version of Caught Up in the Rapture. I would pay $25 for that alone, in part because that tape gets teenage Mary J. Blige a record deal. Mary was born in the Bronx. She grew up singing in church in Savannah, Georgia, before her family moved to Yonkers, New York, to the Schlobom housing projects in Yonkers, eight, seven-story buildings. A way less cheerful New York Times article from 1987 with the headline,

Yonkers Anguish, Black and White in Two Worlds, talks about the racial segregation and slow degradation. and slow degradation of schlobom, the crime, the trash, the graffiti, the broken glass, and the playgrounds. Somebody in the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority says, if we ever replicated another schlobom, I think it would be an obscenity. That's what Mary J. Blige was caught up in in 1988. So this tape Mary made at the mall, her mother's boyfriend at the time hears it and loves it and passes it along to his friend Jeff Reed, who works with him at the General Motors plant in Terrytown. And even though Jeff is working at the GM plant, Terrytown, he is himself an artist, a musician, a singer, signed to the fabled Uptown Records,

based in Manhattan, run by music business god Andre Harell, and sitting at the fabled vanguard of the late 80s hip-hop and R&B. Jeff runs this mall tape straight to Andre Horell. Here is Jeff explaining why. You know, I heard the pain of a generation. That's what it was with her because it was my 89. I was right at the tail end of the crack era. Uptown Records in this era has Heavy D in the Boys and Father MC and Teddy Riley's new Jack Swing Group guy. They're about to sign Jodacy,

but they don't yet have somebody precisely hard and soft enough to push the label and really R&B as a whole forward. Jeff Reed wasn't quite that somebody, but he found that somebody. And a lot of the kids that were growing up then were raising themselves. And when Mary opened her mouth and sang, it spoke to a generation of children and kids that were coming up out of that era. That's from a 2021 documentary called Mary J. Blige's My Life, directed by Vanessa Ross and streaming on Amazon Prime. This is not the most revelatory pop star documentary you're ever going to see in your life. It can be vague.

It can be withholding. It can radiate press release energy. The great pop critic and blogger, Rich Joswiak, wrote a great piece about it for Jezebel. And he says, the film is the equivalent of Blige leaving herself a five-star Yelp review. Rich is the best. Rich is a huge fan of Marys. He also says that Mary definitely deserves a five-star Yelp review. There's a deeply unpleasant tension here between what she won't say and the profound

ugliness of what she will say. If you read anything about Mary J. Blige, if you watch her VH1 behind the music, if you listen to her albums, if you see her live, if you spend any time with her in any capacity, she will tell you bluntly and to a careful degree explicitly about the darkest aspects of her childhood. When she was five years old, she was molested by a family friend. As a teenager, as a coping mechanism, she turned to drugs and alcohol and dropped at a high school. In that documentary, she calls the Schlobam Housing Projects, a prison within a prison, within a prison. She says she remembers hearing women being beaten. She says that she never smiled as a teenager. In many of her early music videos, album covers, etc., she's got a hat pulled down low over her eyes, in part to hide a prominent scar below her left eye.

She says she will never talk about how she got that scar. In the documentary, here is how Mary. summarizes all of that. My life is not in the sunshine. My life is hell. My life is me not being able to get things out of my head that happened to me, not being molested out of my head from a childhood from being five years old. Other things that happened that I will not discuss.

There's so many things happening to a little girl. Other things that happen that I will not discuss is the most distrust. part of this movie. I tell you all this because she'll tell you all this. She told us all this virtually from the beginning. When fellow singers describe the pain in Mary J. Blige's voice, it's the pain of a generation. That's absolutely true. But it's also the pain of one struggling teenage girl. When Puff Daddy, at the time a young, ambitious Uptown Records executive, describes her raspy, gutter, ghetto tone, the pain in her voice because there was so much pain in the streets, yes, absolutely. That's the pain of a generation.

Some of that pain she shares with the world. Some of that pain will always be hers and hers alone. She signs to Uptown Records. Her first album, What's the 411, comes out in July 1992, when she's 21 years old. Am I drawn to the song Real Love Now? Her first truly big single, her first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, her introduction to much of the world. Am I fixated on Real Love Now because it's so joyful?

I can't hear any of that? pain or because somehow you totally can still hear it. Man, I really hate the thing. I swear I'm not doing the thing where I insist that a buoyant and happy song is secretly a crushingly sad song. That's not it at all. Real love is pure sunlight to me. I love how nimble her voices, the skipping stone deafness of her syllables, the way the bass kicks in right when her voice does. Mary's got two decades of fantastic work ahead of her, but I don't know if there's a better hook in her catalog, then the piano and the drums here. The piano and the drums demonstrating what real love would sound like and feel like. I'm just saying that part of what makes this song so

buoyant and carefree is how much weight she secretly packs into the words, we made it through the storm. Part of what makes real love so impressive is that it transcends the 50,000 other songs named Real Love. I live in Columbus, Ohio, near Ohio State, which has just trademarked the word the as in the Ohio State University it's the dumbest shit imaginable and the audacity of trademarking the word the is commensurate with putting out a song called real love and having it be the definitive song called real love but mary j blige did it and beat out stiff competition to do it who do we got here we got jody watley that sounds great that sounds from nineteen eighty nine like three years earlier who else we got slaughter the las vegas cocker

rock knuckleheads in Slaughter. Slaughter are not the dudes who wave chainsaws around. That's Jackal, Jackal with a Y, just F-Wa-I. Slaughter put out a song called Real Love in 1992, the same year Mary did. I feel like you can hear how pointy Slaughter's guitars are in this video. I feel like you can hear the giant gong behind the drummer in the real love video, even though the drummer never hits the gong. The gong is a threat, not a promise. Kirk Franklin, The Doobie Brothers, Rome, Carly Ray Jepson, Future and Young Thug. Goodness gracious, the Beatles have a song called Real Love. John Lennon wrote it, and it wound up on that second Beatles anthology record in 1996.

I don't go in much for demos, outtakes, et cetera, even when it's the Beatles. But sure, I'll take one more George Harrison guitar solo for the road. What makes the Mary J. Blige conception of Real Love Superior is that combination of softness and hardness. This song is carefree in a way that subtly acknowledges. that the entire notion of carefree is totally not a thing. The joy of this real love is hard fought, and the fight will always be there, even when the real love itself is not.

Mary's Real Love was written and produced by Corey Rooney and Mark Morales. Mark is better known as Prince Mark E.D. from the Fat Boys, who died in 2021. And both those guys heard the pain, both the universal and brutally specific pain in Mary's voice as well. When Ebony Magazine did a 20-year anniversary piece on what's the the 411, Corey said, Everyone started writing songs. We all caught on very fast that Mary was going to embrace the songs that really

represented her life. I guess that's where she got that title of being the queen of hip-hop soul. Basically, Mary J. Blige is the female that's from the hood that sings the pain of all the females from the hood. At that point in her life, she was being taken advantage of by a lot of the industry cats. And a song like Real Love described her situation. One day, she said with tears in her eyes, I just want a real love in my life for once.

He also says, she was so emotional back then. Sometimes we would be in the studio and she would have tears in her eyes. Right in the middle of a take, you wouldn't hear anything in the dark vocal booth. We would wonder if she was still in there. She would be in there, but her emotions took over. All of these records started becoming real life records for her. End quote. The bridge to this song is where real love gets the realist. My suspicion is that when the vocal booth gets the darkest, that's when Mary J. Blige is about to sing the hardest. So it's 1992 in this song by a 21-year-old R&B singer you've never heard of, jumps out of the radio and tackles you lovingly. And so you buy the whole album. What's the 4-1-1? That's telephone operator slang. Mary had worked as a telephone

operator. If you're a young person who doesn't know what 4-1 refers to, just stay away from me. And the first thing you hear on this record is Mary's hot shot producer sassing her on her answering machine. A bunch of other people leave messages. This intro goes on for a half hour. It's like three minutes, but it feels like a half hour. That donkey horn sound effect between messages, do do do do do. I will forever associate that with Mary J. Blige. Yes, Puff Daddy is your primary producer and overlord.

This will be the apex of Puff's Uptown Records experience. He's going to get fired from the label in a year, start, Bad Boy Records, hook up with a notorious BIG and buy some suits. The super long answering machine intro does establish that lots of men primarily are praising and or hassling Mary J. Blige, and at least for the moment she is ignoring them, or at least screening them. Uptown record signs her in pretty much immediately this queen of hip-hop soul business is foisted upon her. She has called upon to bridge worlds and resolve contradictions. Uptown boss Andre Horell prefers the term

ghetto fabulous. When Andre died in 2020, the fantastic critic and author Barry Michael Cooper wrote a piece for Vanity Fair about Uptown's crossover ambitions. And he said that from Andre Horel's perspective, quote, Mary J. Blige was his Diana Ross and his Barbara Streisand and his Audrey Hepburn.

End quote. The elegance in the grit, the streetwise diva, a throwback talent who also represents the future. Two of the first three songs on What's the 411? The two songs that aren't real love are called Reminous and You Remind Me. The fourth song, after a Buster Rhymes intro that lasts two minutes but also feels like a half hour is a cover of sweet thing, which Shaka Khan at first sung with the band Rufus back in 1975. Twitter has something called Notes Now where you can write way longer tweets.

that's terrible. Obviously, don't do that or read it when other people do that with one exception. The great critic Craig Seymour, he's been on the show before. He's got a ton of Mary Jay Blige knowledge and enthusiasm. And he wrote about her professional and personal relationship with Shaka Khan. Specifically, Craig wrote about how Shaka Khan at her concerts used to introduce Sweet Thing by saying, here's the song Mary J. Blige fucked up. And Craig interviewed Shaka Khan once about this and she says she did fuck it up and I told her she fucked it up. She was flat on it. She didn't seem like she was giving her best. I asked her about it and she said, I recorded it at 8 in the morning and I said, don't do anything at 8 in the morning. Don't do

anything at 8 in the morning unless you've been up all night. I was giving her good sound advice from a place of love and she took it in the right way. She wasn't hating and it was beautiful. end quote. This is the original Rufus version, just for comparison's sake. For sure, it does not sound like Shaka Khan is singing that at 8 in the morning. All right, and here's Mary. Both of those verses start exactly two minutes and nine seconds into the song. It's uncanny. Ficked it up seems awfully harsh, but I'm not Shaka Khan. The journalist Danny Alexander wrote a book called Real Love, No Drama, the music of Mary J. Blige, and he tossed to the R&B singer Alison William's, Allison with a Y, who toured with Mary as one of her backup singers around 1997.

And Allison says, she was nowhere near the singer she is now then. And even now, my critique for Mary, and I'm not hating or saying anything that I wouldn't say directly to her, there are still some areas where she can be a little flat and a little sharp at the same time, something I call flarp, end quote. Yes, you heard me. Flarp. That's tough. That's a tough one. A common criticism of Mary J. Blyze, especially in her earliest days, is that her voice was rough and imperfect and in a sense untrained if you're grading on the ultra-diva, Aretha Franklin, great gowns, beautiful gowns scale. Except this was also just as often a huge part of the praise heaped on Mary J. Blige. The imperfections were essential to her realness. Plus, she wrapped, too, imperfectly, in space. But what's the 411 ends with the title track? And Grampoobab, Branubian shows up, but this lady shows up too. You gotta do a lot more, and that's just how it be.

I'm Mary Barden, you just ain't running up with me. I need a man who's looking out with some security. So come correct with some respect, and then we will see. And for her next trick, Mary J. Blige put out the best album of her ongoing two-decade-14 studio album Eight Grammy-Win career. She put out the album Complex, put it number one on their list of the 30 best 90s R&B albums by anybody. This is what I mean when I say picking the song this week was hard. Mary J. Blige's next album, My Life, came out in 1994 and it's incredible.

This is the song called My Life, the Manifesto called My Life. Life can be only what you make it. Probably won't hit you that hard at first, but when you're feeling down, you should never fake it might. Frankly, I have no idea whether this woman is Flarp right now vocally, but it matters less here than it ever did

or ever will. Even Shaka Khan's negative energy, I suppose. This song is built around the immortal Roy Ayers jam. Everybody Loves the Sunshine, which, not to be hyperbolic, but everybody loves the sunshine is on the shortlist of the greatest songs that ever existed. Mary still got Puff Daddy

on her answering machine. The Jovial producer Chuckie Thompson is a major force throughout the My Life album as well. But the biggest difference between what's the 411 and this record is that this time Mary J. Blythe is a co-writer on nearly every song, which may explain why now she is seeking real love within and not from any of the various clowns orbiting around her. I came so close to picking this song. This song rules. Same deal with the song called Be Happy. which is the most perceptive and realistic song called Be Happy you can possibly imagine. In 2022, it's very easy to be skeptical of and cynical about notions of self-help, self-care, self-love, and so forth.

These are marketing categories now, are cloying Instagram captions. The word scam likely should start flashing in giant neon letters in the sky whenever anybody starts talking to you like this. The miracle of the whole My Life album is that Mary J. Blige makes those ideas of self-love feel logical and true and real and attainable. You know how Maxine Waters, the congresswoman, said, I'm reclaiming my time in a committee hearing and immediately reclaiming my time became a meme and a hashtag and like a whole ethos. But it was immediately in danger of being overused and or used by doofy white people like myself and turned into like Etsy merch and shit.

my life is the album you can still use to reclaim the notion of reclaiming one's time. I don't know if that word is pronounced ethos or ethos. I am through making pronunciation jokes on this show as people on Twitter are now informing me that I'm mispronouncing words that I'm making a huge deal about finally pronouncing correctly. It's a fucking fiasco. It's futile. Listen, long story short, if this is flarp, then we should all aspire to be this flarp. had to say goodbye Look what

I can't stop these This is Mary J. Blige's cover of I'm Going Down A 1976 hit from the extremely well-named soul group Rose Royce. I don't believe anybody from Rose Royce ever claimed that Mary fucked this one up. What somehow makes my life even more

spectacular and necessary is that it didn't solve anything for her. What this record does most effectively is sell you on the idea that self-care however you reclaim and redefine that term is a lifelong pursuit, a lifelong battle. It's not that Mary J. Blyge wins and walks off triumphantly into the sunset. It's that Mary J. Blige fights. The fight and the refusal to give up the fight is inspiring even when she's struggling. This is delicate territory because she might be a superstar and a diva and the queen

of hip-hop soul, but she's also a person. The trick is to separate your personal opinion of the Mary J. Blyse song Be Happy from the question of whether or not you personally want Mary J. Blige to be happy because of how it might affect the music she makes. That real love, no drama book talks about an interview she did with Ebony in 2003 where she says, quote, you know, I don't really care about those people

who say I'm too happy because it's obvious they don't care about me. At this point, the writer says she doubles over and curls into a weeping ball of confusion. fusion, breaking down as tears stream along her cheeks and she clutches her face between her hands. And then Mary says, they think this is entertainment. They don't have to buy one of my records. Don't. Somebody else in this world wants to be happy. If it's 10 people, then fine. End quote. So Mary J. Blige's third album comes out in 1997. It's called Share My World. The best song is

called everything. This part is why it's the best song. The backing vocals there. That's why that song is the best. Share My World is also notable for being the first Mary J. Blige's album to not include a duet with Casey Haley, a member of Jodice and Mary's on again, off again boyfriend for many years. Mary J. Blyse has said many times in that documentary in countless interviews that her relationship with Casey was abusive, the word she most often uses to discrequent. their relationship is hell. If you've got even a little context, you might grow at a wince whenever

the KC duet pops up on a Mary J. Blige record, this goes far beyond separating the art from the artist or the personal drama from the musical drama. That line is razor thin by the time you get to the fourth Mary J. Blige album, which is simply called Mary. The cover is

a tight close-up. She's turned to the right. The scar on her face that's been in shadow so often in photos is now plainly visible. This album includes what appears to be her last duet with Casey. It's called Not Looking. It ends like this. You might wince at this on too, though it's only right to let you know.

You might winced at this on too, though it's notable that her voice completely overpowers his, and also she calls in reinforcements. And it's over. falling down a deep Mary J. Blige Rabbit Hole requires walking this tightrope between the singer and the human. Between the pain in her voice and the pain she explicitly says is in her heart. She was married to Kendo Isaacs for 12 years, but their messy divorce was finalized in 2018. You can trace that saga through much of her music as well. The therapeutic aspect of her music is right there in her album titles, No More Drama in 2001. That's the big one, the one with Family Affair, her number one hit. the no-hateration holleration in this dancery one. Love and life. The breakthrough. Stronger with each tear.

The strength of a woman. She put out a record this year called Good Morning, Gorgeous. The last four songs are called Love Without the Heartbreak, Falling in Love, Enough, and Need Love. She's still fighting. She's still struggling. She's still searching for a real love. And all of this music and the moment you're hearing it somehow sounds triumpt. even if it isn't triumphant, even if she clearly doesn't feel triumphant.

The search and the fight is as important as what you find or what you win. And the people, the fans she's inspired are most important of all. They recognize each other. They lean on each other. She's from where they're from. The best 90s Mary Jay Blige's album is My Life. No question. The second best is her live album, the tour from 1996, for the crowd.

and the stage banter alone. That's right before a song called A Love No Limit. When you frame the choice that way, it makes a lot of sense. The live version of Not Going Cry originally from the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack is also incredible. The end is extra incredible. But there's only one song the tour could have possibly started with. You only get 90 seconds of real love live to start this record, but 90 seconds of real

love is worth two hours of anything else. all the people screaming in the crowd there, they might not always be all Mary J. Blige needs to get by. But most of the time, they're enough. We are so psyched to welcome Leslie Gray Streeter back to the program. We talked about Celendia on several months or years ago. Leslie is a columnist with the Baltimore banner and the author of Black Widow,

a sad, funny journey through grief for people who normally avoid books with words like Journey in the title. Leslie, it's so great to have you. you back. Oh, I'm so psyched. There's so many things. I actually been, I won't say stalking, but I've been saying, hey, if there's anything in need, I'd love to come back on your program. I have many 90s things that I can discuss. So this, this happens to be one of them. I wouldn't call that stalking. That's just talking. Friendly, friendly banter. I wanted to start off asking you about the idea of self-care or self-love or self-acceptance. These ideas have been

pretty thoroughly co-opted at this point by, you know, ads for soap or whatever. But self-love seems pretty central to the whole idea of Mary J. Blige. Like, was she ahead of her time in that respect? I think she is particularly for women who are not necessarily the women that you would think of as needing help. There's this very pervasive view of the strong black woman, the woman who can take anything and she's the strong best friend in movies and she's there and she doesn't necessarily always have her own story, but she's there to be the backbone and support of everyone else. And so Mary J. Blige and people who followed after her to say, I am a strong woman, but also I am vulnerable and I can hurt and I do need things and I can be hurt and I do want protection.

I was reading in research for this today, someone compared this to Karen White superwoman that McCarran Whitehead did not have the longevity or the vocals, but the idea that I'm a person, this girl needs more than occasional hugs is a token of love from you to me. And what Mary did was much more guttural, both in real love and other things where she said, here's who I am. I'm kick-ass.

I'm strong. I'm sexy. I also can be hurt. I also need you to, if you're not going to come at me, like that was real love saying, if you're not going to come at me from the very beginning with a love that will honor me and take care of me,

keep it stepping, keep it moving. I don't want it. And I think that because there has not necessarily been as much focus on the vulnerability and femininity in that way, if you think of vulnerability as femininity of black women, yes, she was an absolute person to say, I can stand it for myself, I'm not weak for admitting what I want. I'm not weak for admitting that I need this. And it was a groundswell.

It was an absolute Ranswell. She wouldn't, so many other people would not exist. I want to say Beyonce, but then the beehive will be after me. You know it's true. Let's not. Let's not. Come at me. Oh, no.

Don't come at me. You got to decide whether you want them to come at you or not. Yes. I would say no. They have to, I don't want them to come at me. But just be honest. She said, not that she set a template for black women feeling this way, but certainly for the popularization in both.

both an R&B and crossover sense of presenting women like her who were not women like the Supremes who were from the project but had their edges shaved off. She was not someone who, like a Whitney Houston who was like from Newark, but had the edges stand it off of her in a Clive Davis presentability kind of a way and respectability politics kind of way. And people called her ghetto. And she said, yeah, Ghetto Fabulous, F you. And I love that.

I love that about her. So yeah, that's a very long answer to that question. That was a wonderful answer to that question. With Real Love specifically, as the first Mary song, a lot of people heard, like, she'd already been through so much in her life that I don't think you can say she sounds young and innocent, right? But like, what strikes you now when you listen to her earliest work? Like, what has changed about her and what still hasn't changed?

What was always there? She sounded hopeful, which is something. that once again, people don't necessarily ascribe to people in certain walks of life. People necessarily ascribe that because they think hopeful is bell, you know, spinning around the mountain going, I want adventure in the Great White somewhere. You know, they don't think of this woman or they think that if you're, you know, it's like Diana Ross's love child. It's like, I'm just sitting here.

Won't someone love me here in this ghetto? You know, because Mary's taking her power. Mary is expanding her power, but it's in a very hopeful way. It's a very youthful way. It's a very, yes, I've been hurt and I've had this relationship and it wasn't what I want it. And this is what I want. This is what I need. There are a lot of early reviews that didn't know what to do with her, you know, that weren't sure because she, this song is somewhat like thematically.

And I use the word thematically. So gold star for me. Very impressive. Yeah. There you go. Things like, you know, you had Crystal Waters and, you know, you know, those kinds of songs that were like, this is 100% pure love,

but those were about the beat. They weren't necessarily about the lyric. And even though the point has been made with a lot of people that she did not write her earlier songs and that she was presented through the lens of people like Puffy and from very strong male producers that it was this idea of hip-hop femininity that was thread through a male gaze. But I think if you see her after,

you understand that she has become, that was from her. I mean, the writers of that song have talked about how it had a bunch of songs of hers that they thought were very kind of like in voguey and they weren't really working. So they said, let's see what else we have. And they talked to her about who she was what she was looking for. And that beget, that song. So even though she does not, she's not actually a quote unquote songwriter on that song, that song came from a very real place. And I think that the authenticity with which she began her career, we didn't know that the Kindu Issax and, you know, all these things were going to happen.

But we knew that this was a person who had real stakes in the game. Not that everyone doesn't, but she wasn't like this person with a perfect life, with perfect family, a perfect, you know, parents going, who will take me to prom? You know, it wasn't like Marley Ringwald going, Blaine, what about, and I love Malloryngwald. Sure. Who doesn't?

I used to call myself the black Moller Ringwald. because I was all paying. And I actually had an opportunity to interview her once when she was doing a cabaret in Boca Raton. And like she made me lunch. We talked about cooking and she, and we finished a bottle of wine. Wow. Fantastic.

Mary J. Blige ain't that. And not where she is. Right. So, yeah. Okay. Wow. Molly Ringwald made you lunch. I don't want to get sidetracked, but that's amazing.

He did, though. And it was the coolest experience, the coolest moments of my life. Yes. Okay. Not to get side to. Okay, the term ghetto fabulous, like, as you say, like, I often hear Andre Horel say that, not her, right? Like, that felt to me like something that was foisted on her and that she embodied it and took it on. But like, that wasn't necessarily her idea of herself, but it, you know, that's a male gaze term as well. Yeah, it is. Here's what I think about that. I think that the word

ghetto has been used by so many people in many walks of life to describe a certain aesthetic. And it is not an aesthetic that you're supposed to be proud of. It's not an aesthetic that's supposed to be taken seriously. And I think that Mary J. Blige said, I can both dress in streetwear but put a fur on it. And I can have my midriff exposed. And I also have like fabulous, expensive earrings. I can mix and match aesthetics because I'm me.

And women were doing that anyway. I mean, you know, this is a stereotype about, you know, quote-unquote ghetto girls and like the dukey dope, you know, the earrings. and the ducatope chains and the whole the Louis Vuitton of it all, you know, and the nails and a very expensive, you know, rhinestones and your whole name on your nails and whatever. So that type of fashion was not given legitimacy.

And I'm going to get a little pre-che for a minute because you asked me the question. There's this whole idea that you can take things from a black or Latino or an Asian experience and quote unquote elevate it by putting it on a white girl or putting it on a high fashion model or, dare I say are Kardashian. Yes, I said it. And that somehow legitimizes it. And so what Mary Jay did was say, I'm legitimizing this myself. I don't need to feed it through eight lenses of white gays or male gays or respectability politics or whatever. I'm just going to do what I want. And as she became more famous, wouldn't you know, people wanted to work with her and, you know, designers worked with her and dressed her and stuff. And even when she,

She wears things that are, you know, she's dressed for like a Grammy or an Oscar or that kind of thing. And she's wearing something that's much more traditional. There's still a bling. Not in a bling that would look like, you know, it's not, you know, her name and whatever. And also, you notice that the black artists that do that can't necessarily go the actors with a gold tooth. There are a lot of white artists that can go, I'm going to pretend to have dreadlocks. I mean, screwy, dude. You know, she took.

Yeah. Don't come at me. She took a moment where she thought this is who I am. And there was an unapologeticness to it. And there was a joy to it is that I get to now where the designers we talked about in the hood. I get to, I have access to the places and spaces. And I'm not going to change. She is now 50 something.

She's my age, you know. So we're not dressing the same that we did. You know, and I was never, I was raised hood adjacent in Baltimore. I was not in the hood, and I was much more preppy. But, you know, I still like the big gold situation. I still like some flash. And actually, the older I get, the more I am more likely to have something. You can't see me.

I'm wearing tasseled earrings that don't match. I like those. They, I can see them. Yeah, they match. They match the aesthetic. And so not worry about if that is going to be a gatekeeper to a certain thing. She was authentic in a way. and she let it ride.

And that, to me, is beautiful. In that vein, in reading about her, I keep tripping over the word diva, you know, when I read it or say it. Like, has the meaning or the feeling behind that word changed for you at all between 1992 and now? Yes. I believe that the word,

and in VH1 had the divas and it was that sort of like, right, right. But here's the thing, but I think that even a lot of the singers like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or Patti LaBelle or Celine Dea, who were lumped into that category, there was a double-edged sword to accepting that classification

because to some people, divas are, they're bitchy and they're egotistical. And diva in the opera sense is I've earned the right to do this because I'm really good. I'm a person who occupies a specific space in the genre, in the venue, in the medium, and I'm a person who is commanded through my hard work. I'm not as you knew.

I'm a diva. I'm not a beginner. I'm a diva. And I think that because once again, male gaze, you and I've talked about the sort of unfortunate way in which criticism and that sort of thing has crafted who women get to be in music and in parts in every part of their life, recognizably in the public. And I think that if you look at someone like Mary J. Blas, she once again was coming. You know, she was championed in part of these systems by already established. male artists who could decide what to package her at as. I think she is a diva in the true sense. In the opera sense.

Yes, she's in the opera sense. She's earned the right to her platform. She's earned the right to be a legend. She's earned the right not in a, I'm just being a bitch for bitchy's sake. Here's the other thing, too. She, like, I think a lot of women have embraced the fact that they're good and stuff, and they're like, fine, call me a diva.

I mean, I had an editor once say to me that I had a talent at being the center of attention. And I said, I know you don't need it as a compliment. But yes, I do. Because that was meant to cut me down. And I refused. I was like, I will laugh it up, laughing it up. Yes. You talked about her reviews.

I read about her being hard to interview or being combative. You know, if you scratch the surface of that, like, that's her reacting to like dumb, awkward, intrusive, personal questions. Like, can you imagine being 21 years old, like surviving what she'd already been survived and then thrust into a spotlight, like that bright, you know, in front of people that dumb? And people who, it has to be said, are mostly at that point in the early 90s coming from an experience that she did not have.

I read a review, a very weird guardian column about this woman who talked about how she, she doesn't have anything to say about the music business, doesn't have anything necessary say about white people, she was nice to say whatever. And she talked about, but it was, you know, that way the Guardian writes

that they, they mean to be provocative, but they get to the meat of it, like eight paragraphs down. And she talked about how the first time she, yeah, that she met her, she was like,

I want to buy her something. I saw this, yeah. This, like, old-ass book about sisters or something and not realizing that she and her sister were no longer close. So she handed to her, what do you think that a woman

from New York, from the project, not to say that she hasn't read it, but do you think that maybe that's most likely the thing that she's going to look or she's going to go, oh, you're some other person who doesn't give a shit and throw it behind her and keep moving.

And to even include that, to have to include her gaze on that. I mean, she was saying, look, I made a mistake. It was a misstep. But this assumption that this person is who you think they are and rather than interview them

to find out who they are to come in deciding who they are already, which is not obviously unique to her. But yeah, you're this 21-year-old person, haven't, you know, dropped out of high school, haven't really been a lot of places. You've gotten the fortune of being involved because of your talent in a lot of things that put you in this position. I was reading the relationship critically with her and Robert Criskel. Yeah.

Oh, God. And I will say he is now a champion, but like the very beginning of her. career. And I don't know if he was saying when he gave her album, the first album, almost no, what's 401? Like, almost no stars, basically. And he gave it kind of a half a star to be nice afterwards. Then I think what he was trying to say was this person obviously has a spark that this album is not, and this music is not tapping into. Yes. But it came off so dismissive. And it came off because, once again, so many, and I know he does a lot of hip hop or whatever, but so many people who reviewed music came to hip hop or to R&B as a, ugh, do I have to?

And so they assigned words like diva to her. They compared her to people that she wasn't anything like. They put her in context that they understood on a very cursory level that were not about who she really was, because they didn't know enough about what she was doing, you know, to actually be authoritative about those comparisons. Just to, okay, so so far, the Beehive, the Kardashians, the Guardian, and Robert Crisgow. I just imagine you like running down the street after this interview and like this, this huge crowd of people are chasing.

You know, I don't give a crap. You know, I just, I feel like those people are very obviously, you know, free to state their own opinions about things as I am. So I mean, my love. And like I said, in Robert Criscow, he has come to. give every one of her subsequent albums an A. So I want to believe that his issue was listening to the raw materials and saying this person deserves better than this potential.

Yeah. Yes. And I want to believe that. But it's crappy. You never want to be 21 years old and go, I hate your stuff. I mean, nobody wants that because you feel like it's you. You don't have the distance between yourself and your art. Of course.

You describe Mary to me as a survivor, obviously. When you listen to her, is she actively giving you strength or is it more a matter of just marveling at and reveling in her own strength? Like, is her music as cathartic for you as it clearly is for her? It is. When you email me and I emailed to you literally, I wrote this at like 1 o'clock in the morning, that you literally, I read the thing and you said, what is it, you know, what do you respond from from her? And I immediately brought into mind her cover of one by you two and I burst in a tears, literally in my room in the dark. burst into tears because I have taken such strength from her. I am a widow, as many people know.

And when my husband died, I sang just fine a lot because I was willing myself to be just fine. I was willing myself to be in that space. And when I was more recovered, I sang that truly as an expression of what I was feeling. Even though, like I said, I am not from the same place that she's from. I am not from the same familial or economic circumstances that she is from, but we're the same age. I get a lot of it. And I think that you asked about how she is grown. I believe that a lot of us have grown up with her, listening to her and listening to her, you know, what's that barbaric yop?

If I'm going to quote Deppoate Society, you know, I think that there's a lot. I just did. You did. I did. You know, I think that there's a lot of us who reflected on her rawness, because when she brought the rawness, it was for herself, right? It was her own cry, but it was also something that she knew after a while that her listeners were going to respond to.

I think anyone can, but particularly women, particularly black women. And I think because there was no one who was writing that stuff for us. I just fine is a wonderful song. That's really beautiful, honestly. what you said. I was going to ask about the one cover because it's amazing, right? Like, and it's in my memory, she didn't start doing it until the mid 2000s, right? Like the song itself, obviously, from the early 90s, but it's one of those covers that's transformative in the best possible way. You did a thing earlier about, um, nothing compares to you where you prefaced it with, um,

Otis talking about how respect used to be his song, To Girl stole it. She stole the song for me. She stole it. Don't read the stole it. And I feel that Mary Jay has not stolen one, but she certainly made it her own to a point where you have, I think, have to mention it. And here's another thing I got to say. Here's a bone to pick, Rob.

Please. In general, that I knew so many people that when she performed that with them live, I forget what award show was on. But many rock purist dudes who were YouTube fans just savage shit. They're like, what is this? Oh, yeah. People are.

What is this? Who is that? What is she doing? She's ruining the song. And like, first of all, the people who are getting the royalties of the song are singing it with her. So they're not bothered. Bato is on board here. Yeah. Bano's going to check. Have you seen sing too, by the way? My kids watched it. And I want to say like I was in another room. It was one of those deals. Like I kept hearing songs from it is one in that. I don't know if I heard that. Stuck at a moment, isn't it? Oh, really? Yes, because the Charlotte Johansson porcupine character sings at him. Because he's a widowed lion. He's a widow lion. Oh, wow. That's heavy.

It's so heavy. His wife has died and he hasn't come out to do anything or perform anything for years. So there's this whole big mixup where they, oh, we know him. We're going to get him. And so they go to talk to it first. He doesn't want to do it. But she sits and she plays that song and she sings. It just, and the, oh, Lord, look at you now.

And I was like, oh, stop it. Oh, my God. That's really intense. It's intense and very beautiful. So, Ono is obviously very interested in not only the reinterpretation of his work, but also getting a check. And so he gets to go. And I'm a great supporter in both of those. Absolutely.

Both worthwhile pursuits. Get your check. So when Mary Jay did that with them and they're endorsing her and they feel strongly enough, obviously about her as an interpreter and about the song that they recorded to go, go for it. And there were people I knew who were just like, what to do with it. But I just, once again, it was, I could feel her soul. And I know that sounds vapid, but I could just. But it's true.

It's absolutely true. Because she made it about, I remember back when Fantasia Burina was on American Idol, and the story goes that she had never heard summertime. but that she was a teenage mom. He had been a teenage mom. So she heard the song and that she responded to it as a mother. And she sang that song, she sang the crap out of that song.

And I think that Mary Jay approached one, because there's the original idea of what the song was about, which is a father talking to a son. And I think that it's her maybe talking to her father with whom she did not have a relationship. Right. with the other minute, with the men in her life subsequently or with producers or critics, whoever it was. But she is stating just as so many of her other songs, she's laying down a, I can't keep holding on to what you got in law.

All you got is hurt. I can't be here anymore. I can't stay here anymore. And I remember singing that in 1990. In my dorm room, 1991, my dorm room at University of Maryland. And I didn't know what I was singing about, but it's important. It's like, because you're young, you're like, I'm just going to sing the songs. And as I went through crappy relationships and disappointing employment situations and things,

and I would sing that song, I can't keep holding on if all you've got is hurt. And once again, this is this woman who is not a woman from a tradition that is normally thought, traditionally thought to be holding onto her strength in a way that is beneficial to her only and not to other people, not as a backbone for society, not as a mother, but as a her and saying, this is what I need and you get the fuck out if you don't want to be here. And that's powerful.

That song is so powerful. Mary J. Blige singing, you asked me to enter, but then you make me crawl is a very different circumstance from Bono, right? Yeah, and you and I have talked about my tendency towards violence reported for people who don't understand

the things that I, like, But when you say that, you want to protect her, but know that she doesn't need your protection, because she's worthy of protection, yet she doesn't need your protection because she's got it. She knows it. She gets it. And it's beautiful. It is beautiful mostly also because she's so invested in it that she's not asking you to like it. She's just asking you to listen to it and hear it.

It occurs to me. I don't know if she ever sang that at a telethon one, but like she's, seems to really thrive, like hope for Haiti, you know, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, like these moments of international tragedy where we all need to come together and lift each other up. Like, it's like those moments summon her, right? Like she just appears on stage. I think it takes us back to this idea of her as like the ultimate survivor who's now here to teach us all of us, teach all of us how to survive. Absolutely. And I think that if you were looking for a reassuring voice, there was a moment where you would like,

you would call Judy College. You would call like Joan Baez. Someone who had a student voice, you had a voice, you would have a Joni Mitchell song. You would sing, hallelujah, even if you didn't understand

what this song was about. Stop having your children's choir sing hallelujah. It's a little disturbing. It's about awkward sex. It's not about God. Stop it. Okay, anyway,

So PSA, thank you. Thank you for clarify. Oh my God, doesn't that irritate you? It is a little weird, but it's so widespread. Like, we just got to give up on that now. It can't stop it. It's, yeah, the momentum is too much. And we're just going to, children's choirs will be singing that song.

Oh, it's so terrible. But forever. We tried. We tried. Mary Jay is added to that canon of people. Like there was like a Katie Lang moment once again, Hallelujah. Or a Neil Young moment or a person,

or Sarah McLaughlin or people who their appearance says to you, Celine Dion, here is a Whitney Houston at some points. Here is a moment where we will all reflect. We can all relate to this person. And I think that Mary Jay has that I am an earnest person because I don't know how else to exist. I can only exist earnestly. And so this is a moment where you can all tap into that earnestness

and move forward. Mary's always had fantastic rapport with rappers, right? Like Method Man, goes face killer, of course, Jay-Z, Lil Kim, Jada Kiss. Like, there are rapper singer collaborations where it's like two ships passing in the night, you know, and they're just there for the check, as you say. But like, Mary and the rapper in question always seem to truly understand each other. Did you, do hear it that way? Oh, I do because it's authentically from the same place.

I think that for, there were a lot of people who misunderstood Mariah Carey, who misunderstood that when she began to do to have rappers as features on her on her things because she had been pitched as this pop diva, they did not understand that she was always a fan of R&B, that yes, she was classically trained, yes, she had this background and this, you know, sort of racially ambiguous appeal, but that was always what she wanted to do when the story goes that her then-husband and guru Tommy Vatola did not want her to do that and steered her away from that.

And until she rested back the, the control of her career, she was not able to do that. I think that you understand who Mary J. Blige has been authentically from the beginning and understand that not only is it not like a ship's passing in the night, it's the same ship. They're on the same raft. They're on the boat because they're from the same place. So that makes sense. It's not this awkward thing.

Like there was this terrible point in the 80s where so many terrible points in the 80s. Yeah, I was going to say you got to narrate. it down. All terrible, honestly. But when you had like the bad boys and the beach boys doing wipe-up. That's not what I thought you were going to say. But yeah, now that you mentioned it. But honestly, Run Dembs, but honestly, RunDMC and Aerosmith worked better for me because there was,

there was a shared sense of an outlawness or a rebellion. Sure. A rebellion, a brashness, a shared sense of a rock and roll sensibility, if not necessarily considering Run DMC to be rock and roll. I think that you had some things that were a little more awkward. I really struggled with which song to pick for this at the bottom of everything. As much as I love real love, like I could have done my life, of course. Now, I could have done anything. Like, is there a definitive song album era of Mary J. Blige for you?

I think the no more drama era to me, speaks more because I guess it established her even more than what's 401 or my life. It was, it was, it's all adult because unfortunately people in her position have to grow up faster than you were an adult at a younger age in some situations than you are in other situations. And I think she certainly did grow up in many ways. She was sexually assaulted as a child. And she'd gone through the separation from her father and, and the addiction. so much. So there was a there was a difference

in what her 21 year old self looked like versus a Jessica Simpson or Amanda Moore or someone else. But I think that no more drama, at least for me personally, because it wasn't, I think a lot of people

misunderstood that song. There was a reporter years ago for the Washington Post who said that Midnight Train of Georgia, which is one of my favorite songs, was a anthem of codependence, she didn't understand. She didn't give the power to the Gladys character. She wasn't saying, I'm going to go with him because I don't have anything to do. She goes, I choosing to go with him. I am making a choice to go with him. And when Mary J. Blige says no more drama, she's just not just

hoping she has no more drama. She's saying there will be no more drama. She is saying I will not accept. And of course, it unfortunately kept happening, but I will not accept people in situations and things into my life that will produce this. I'm turning a new leaf. I'm starting over. And I love that. I know you're probably going to ask this later, but when she got divorced, there were a lot of people who loved her who said online, I'm so sorry that's happening. But that album's going to be fire. Right, right, right. This is a real problem for her.

It is that people are waiting for her, for things to go wrong in her life. Exactly. You know, Strings of a Woman, the divorce album, is one of the strong. this divorce albums. My favorite before this was Sean Colvin's a few small repairs. Great, bitter-ass album. That's a great pairing you just made right there. I'm glad you put those two together. And Marvin Gay's here, my dear. There we go. Now three. I love fucking petty albums, man. It's like, you know what? Here I am. And by the way, that Sean Colvin album is amazing. But I will say that, beginning back to Mary J. Blige, that she, I like her in Survivor mode.

I like her in, and that to me was a something. My life was great, but the No More Drama album was so much about here I am sticking my flag into the sand and to the hill and saying, this is where I live my life from now on, that was so powerful to me. I mean, she's had to do interviews where she sort of burst into tears during the interview talking about, like, people who don't want her to be happy. You know, like people who don't like this album that she's promoting right now because it's too happy, you know? And it's that's such a bizarre position to be in, as you say, when people are sort of rooting for you to be unhappy just because they think it'll make your music better. It's the fat Luther Skinny Luther thing. You know, I'm talking about Luther Vandruff.

obviously. But like, fat Luther sang better. It's like skinny loser's probably healthier. But fat Luther was where it was at? It's like, what is wrong with you? What's wrong with you? And that, yes, she makes a different kind of album when she is unhappy. But I don't think it's even about her being unhappy.

It's her assessing and saying, what did I learn from this? And here for my gut, from my heart, from my spleen is where I'm going now. And I just, I don't think she could be, I mean, she's a wonderful actress, and we'll get to that. But I don't think that as a singer, she could be fake. I just, I listen to I'm not going to cry this morning. And I think I was doing, I think my child was disturbed. I was just like, not my head.

I should have left your ass long ago. I'm like, who hasn't as a human being? Had a, I should have left your ass long ago moment. I know I have. I know every single human that I know has had that moment. And there's this moment and, you know,

I'm all over the place with the references. Please. In singles, where Bridget Fonda's character who has said that what she wants with someone who will say, God bless you when you sneeze is sitting at Dylan and when she sneezes,

he says, don't get me sick. I got a gig. And in her head, she thinks, I don't have to be here. I can just break up with him. That's in me as the Mary J.

Blige spirit. That is the spirit. says, wait a fucking minute. I don't need this shit. I can be, I can do bad by myself. Hello, Tyler Perry. Please don't sue me. I can do this.

And it'd be great to be in a relationship. And I've already set the template of what it is I'm looking for. But I don't got to be here. I don't got to do this. I'm not going to do this. Yes. I remember people doing the math. Like she's saying 11 years, right?

And she was, what, like 25? at the time, you know. But like it sounded like she had been in a bad relationship for 11 years. Like you believed it. You believed it. And you believed, you know, it's like Cher was not living on a gypsy train and gypsy you know, she's saying it like she was. Tiffany had not been through a divorce when she's saying all this time.

She was like three. I mean, calm. Approximate. Yeah. Yes. Okay. I go deep in the end to your Gen X nostalgia there. But it's not about the storyline necessarily as it's about the feeling.

And are you able to do? Do you feel like Tiffany doesn't know what to do now with all this time? Yes, you do. Do you feel like Mary J. Blige has been 11 years in this relationship with the kids and shit? Yeah, you do. And that's all you need to sell it because she's been there in some way. Absolutely. How do she strike you as an actress?

Okay. So a couple years ago, I was doing. Oscar story and it was one of the first years, I was working at the Palm Beach Post. It was one of the first years that a lot of the shows were the movies were on Netflix. That's right. So you could find not just like you waited for them to be on Netflix. They came

out on Netflix. So she was in Mudbound. Mudbound. And which was I don't do a lot of, as Marshall Warfield once said, Cicely Tyson Wilson was done, oh Lord, YBB Black movies because

it's depressing. And I don't I don't want to do it. But this was a beautiful movie. It was. A lovely, almost claustrophobically intimate movie about struggling people. And it was just, and what you tell yourself to justify how much you make someone else struggle. And she was nakedly gorgeous and stoic and painful and strong in this movie. It was just, it was amazing.

because then she can do, you know, she can be on, you know, power. You know, she can do a lot of different things. Entourage. Yes. I find. Sorry, I've even brought up entourage. Trolls, you know. She has a voice of now.

Trolls is a better comparison, yes. There you go. I find her, because we talk about her authenticity, but she's not just playing herself when she does these things. She was not a dustful mother living. living in depression. She was not that person, but she could imbue that because you trust her. You trust that she's not lying to you, even if she's playing a character, even in song

or in a movie or in a voice performance, you trust that she's telling you the truth and that what she is giving is an authentic portrayal of the thing that she is saying. And that is, I like that. Leslie, this is the highlight of my day. It is 12.46 p.m. where I am, and this is the best thing that will happen to me all day. This has been wonderful. You are coming back. We're going to talk to you every week. I have ideas. Don't say that, dude, because I'm going to, like, the minute I get up, I'm going to email you, like, eight songs. You can stalk me again. I want you to offend as many people as possible in this venue. Let's change the world.

I love Beyonce. I think he's amazing. Her latest work is, and actually, let me say very quickly, that when I was researching this, we were talking about the reception of Mary J. Blige, and it was at the same time that people had gotten in trouble for mischaracterizing Beyonce's work with Big Frida. Right.

Dance Hall-esque or something. Right, right, right, right. No, it's New Orleans bounce. And once again, it goes back to the whole idea of people commenting on things because they've heard, they know five different explainers for black music. And they'll throw one of them out and hope that it fits. And that there are more, fortunately, there are more and more people like so many of the guests, like Daniel Smith, who I am in love with.

Yes, absolutely. In a critic girl way, I just find her so amazing because she has always been a person who's legitimized that sort of. And she said, this is legitimate because I said it is because you know it is because there's people that back it up. And you don't have to get it. Maybe it's not for you. And so there are people who understand that. And now they're 20, 25 years later, there are so many more people of record who are able to say with authority, with a platform, you are out of your effing mind.

So, yes. It's got to be said sometimes. Yes. Sometimes it's just the truth. From the bottom of my heart, Leslie, thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Thanks so much to our guest this week, Leslie Streeter. Thanks as always to our producers, Justin Sales, Jonathan Kerma, and Kai Grady.

And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, without further ado, here's Mary J. Blige with Real Love. We'll see you next week.