Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Mary J. Blige

Episode Date: September 6, 2020

The groundbreaking career of Mary J. Blige is all the more impressive when you consider she escaped a troubled childhood in the projects of Yonkers, New York and was discovered while doing karaoke at a local mall. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the Grammy winner about her journey since then including her debut album “What’s the 411?,” the new music she’s been writing during quarantine and her latest venture into the world of wine. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. We got a brand new virtual conversation for you today. And man, am I fired up about this one? Growing up in high school in 1992 and three, junior and senior years, Mary J. Blige, may I just say, was my jam. She was my favorite. I was dating a young lady at the time named Christina Sharkey.

I made her Mary J. Blige mixed. tapes and now we're married happily with two children. So Mary Jay gets a huge assist on my entire life. She's huge. She's big for me. So I finally got a chance to interview or sit down with her. Not exactly the way I would have drawn it up because we're in our respective backyards sitting outdoors. But we are drinking a little wine. I should point out it's the morning. Not going to lie about that, a little bit before noon. She has a line of wines called sun goddess wines that are now out. So we opened a bottle of each. There's a rosé and a Sauvignon Blanc.

And you know what we did? We did what people do. It was a hot summer day. We toasted. We drank a little wine and talked about her career. She's got a ton going on in addition to Sun Goddess wine. Talked about her maybe rolling out some new music. She's been writing and thinking about over the course of the pandemic.

She's been mostly in her backyard right where we found her in New Jersey with a ton of projects coming up out on the horizon. So we get into all of it in an interview I was thrilled to sit down with. And you mix some little wine on a beautiful day. I mean, it just doesn't get any better. So I hope you enjoy my conversation right now with Mary J. Blige on the Sunday Sitdown podcast. Mary, thank you so much for doing this. It's good to see you. Good to see you.

Thank you for having me. As I said to you a minute ago, there's nobody I'd want to sip wine with in the morning more than Mary J. Blige. Thank you. So tell me about Sun Goddess. That's your wine. When did you get into the wine business? How did it come together for you? Well, I got into the wine business about three years ago. I was on tour with Maxwell. And we were out at dinner. And Maxwell has some of his Italian friends with him. Maxwell has a lot of friends. And he had his Italian friends with him that day. And I was just drinking white wine the whole time. And one of them asked me, why don't you do a white wine? And I just learned it out, yeah, I should because I love it so much. And if I love something, I feel like, you know, my fans and women love wine. I love wine.

So I felt like it was a no brand. It wasn't something that I was thinking about all my life or planned. It just happened on the spot. And the person that asked me happened to be Marco Fontenelle from Fontenelle wineries. And before you knew what I think it was like a month later, we were, we flew into Friuli, Italy. We touched down to Marco's property, which was the winery. We started tasting wines out of these brown barrels and probably had like 10 glasses of tasting of what I wanted the wine to taste like. And then we went up, he had like a little dinner later.

And we went up there and had some dinner. The next day, we went up to the vineyards. He showed me what grapes was sauvian, Blanc grapes, and he showed me what grapes were Pinot-Brigio grapes. And he showed me where the wine was going to be made and where it was going to be bottled and all that stuff. So it was a lot of history of, you know, how wines were. made. And then the next day, it was the food pairing with the wines. And that was a lot of fun because I love food. So, and the rest is history now. You're going to ask me about the name, right? Yeah, son got us. Where does it come from? Well, I'm, I've loved the sun so much since I was a little girl.

I stayed in the sun, hanging the sun, you know, go down south. My grandmother's yelling at me, get out of the sun, Mary. And when I got older, you know, now I do the same thing. So I go away with my sister to an island and she'll like, you know, it's too hot. I can't. I can't hang in the sun with you no more, sun goddess. It's too hot. So my sister actually gave me the name. I'm the sun goddess and I gave it to the wine because wine is warm. It changes the mood.

It makes you happy. It makes you feel good. It makes you blush. It gives you a, you know, and so is the sun. The sun is the same thing. It makes sense when you put it that way. I mean, we all like wine. We all like to have a drink.

But for the rest of us, there's a big distance between I like wine to I'm going to have my own wine. So what did you have to do to actually? make this come to life. Were you like tasting the different grapes and figuring out how exactly you wanted your own wine to taste? Well, when I, when I touched down in Friuli, Italy, I started tasting, you know,

we went in, Michael brought us into, you know, his property was the winery. And he brought us into, I guess, where all the barrels are, where the different wines are. And we was tasting different wines from out of the barrels. And so I would taste what, you know,

a pinotogregio is or a salveon blanc is. And I didn't know which was which. But Marco would say, okay, that's a Sauvian Blanc or that's a pina grigio. And the rosé came later. I didn't even know I was going to do a rosé because I was just trying to do a pina grigio. But turns out that the pina grigio grape is red. So he used the skin as well as the grape. So I thought the pina grigio grape was white because the pinaigrizo was always white.

Right. So that was one part of it. And then when I came back to the states, he would send. different bottles to taste, you know, to taste to see which one I like the best. So I tasted, you know, for years, about three years. And finally, we got the right one. And here we are. And what did people around you say when you went to them, whether it was people in your family or a business manager, whoever, and said, I'm going to start my own line of wine. What was their reaction? You know what? I really didn't tell my family or anyone because I don't tell my business until

it's really happening. When you start to see press for it, then you know it happened. in. But my business managers and my lawyers and everybody that were involved, they don't ask questions. You know, they were like, okay, cool, we're going to do whatever you want us to do. So they were fine with it. And then when it hit, and I started sharing it with my family and my friends, they are losing their minds, just like I'm losing my mind. It's there, the branding I was telling you, my wife works in the business. She thought the logo looks so good. The name plus the logo. Did you have input on that, down to that to say, this is who I am, this is what I want it to be? Absolutely. First, we, you know, as far as the

logo is concerned and what the bottle looked like, we had a different one. And I was like, I don't like that one. That one is not gender friendly. It's not, you know, everyone's not going to drink it because of what the bottle looks like. So I came up with, you know, a way that everyone could share it. Like men would feel comfortable drinking it. Women, you know, of course we're going to feel comfortable drinking because it's me. But men will feel comfortable drinking it. Everybody's going feel comfortable drinking it. It's not, it doesn't look like just a woman's wine. It looks like wine for people. Yeah, there's no question about it. I have to tell you, despite the hour of the day, I've poured a glass of each. So if I take a sip first of the Sauvignon Blanc, do you want to

tell me a little bit about what I'm tasting? I believe that you're tasting a Sauvian Blanc grape, spicy, spicy yellow bell pepper. Bell pepper. Yeah, bell pepper. That's what's in that one. And some earthy notes or something like that. Yeah, it's really good. Okay, now here's the Pinot Grisio.

Right, let's see how we do on this one. It's good, especially on a hot summer day like this. This is it. This is perfect. Yeah, the Pinagrigio is nice. So do you have a favorite between the two? Yes, the Pina Grigios. Yeah.

I love them both. I love them both, but the Pina Grigio was so lit. It's so beautiful. Has it been fun for you, Mary, to do something this different from other things that you've done in your career? Obviously, the music and the acting and the other businesses that you've been involved with. This is totally off the board of things you've done before. Was it scary? Was it exciting?

What's it been like? This whole thing has been exciting. Like, has nothing scary about it. It's just been so creative. Everything from the creating, you know, the bottle label, the tasting of the wine. They're going to see Marco and for you Italy from day one. It's just been all fun, all fun and all love, lots of love. I have new family in Italy now.

Marco and his family are, like, we're super close. And I didn't realize how much time you spent in Italy with the food and the wine and that that was really the birthplace of this. Is that, is this born out of a lot of your traffic? travels too and kind of figuring out what you like? Well, you know, I love Italy. That's one of my favorite places. Italy, London, and Japan, and of course, you know, the United States of America. But Italy is definitely one of my favorites.

The food just tastes like, I mean, it's just so explosive to eat a tomato, to eat a piece of cheese. It tastes like it doesn't taste normal. It tastes like, oh, my God, but this is the best cheese in the world. This is the best tomato in the world just explodes in your mouth. Or this is the best fruit in the world. So, you know, I'm just happy that this came with travel. Well, congratulations. It's a huge accomplishment to dip into that world and do such a good job on your first effort.

I imagine you're probably sipping some of this during quarantine, maybe hanging out around the pool. What has quarantine been like for you? Quarantine has been a lot of rosé. A lot of sun goddess Pina Grigio-Modal-Rosé. I love it. my friends love it, my mom love it, you know, and she's very finicky, but she loves, you know, she doesn't even drink wine, she loves wine. And so what's it been like for you these last few months staying at home as such a creative

person who's used to spending her life on the road and making music and singing for her fans? Has it been tough to be kind of locked down like this? No, it hasn't. I actually enjoyed the rest because I've been going so much, you know, consistently. When we slowed down, I was happy to we slowed down. I mean, I would love to be on the road. I wish we could go on the road, but it's not something I'm here like, oh, God, you know, in quarantine, dying and crying. I'm just, when I relax, I relax, I love to relax.

I love to sleep. I love to eat as much as I love to work. So I was actually cool, you know. And it gets a little bit, you know, sometimes like, gosh, this is sad. This is sad. You can't leave. You can't go anywhere. but I just learned to just be grateful for what I have, and that's the time off.

Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Mary J. Blige after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sitdown podcast. Now more of my conversation with Mary J. Blige. So, Mary, have you had time to work on any music during quarantine? A lot of people are talking about, oh, I've got all this time, I'm going to write an album, I'm going to write a book, whatever people, creative people are thinking about.

have you thought about your own music or just taking a break from it? Well, I've had a lot of music already completed before quarantine, like new music that's going to assume here. But I've been writing a lot just about life, about myself, about the quarantine, about what people are going through, just about everything that happened, you know, during this whole thing and just writing, just anything that comes to mind, you know, I wake up in the middle of the night and grab my phone and type in my notes, you know.

So I got a lot of stuff, you know, to say and a lot of stuff to sing. Does that mean there'll be a new album coming? Definitely be a new album coming. Sometime after this, sometime soon, you think? Sometimes soon, but I can't give you a date. Right. Okay, no, that's fair. And I heard you said you were listening to a bunch of like throwback music too, which I think we're all tapping into that nostalgia of the music that we loved

in a time that kind of puts us at peace. What kind of music have you been listening to during quarantine? Man, I've been listening to, and this is what I normally do too, you know, but quarantine just made me really dig into it. And I think quarantine really made me dig into a lot of jazz as well. And a lot of just old R&B that's not so much singing, but like a lot of instrumentals, like a lot of Roy Ares, a lot of cooling the gang, some of madness,

and, you know, a lot of live bands, you know, stuff. And then a lot of just beautiful, you know, 80s, 90s, R&B, you know. And then, of course, 2000 is great, but I kind of, you know, that's where I get the feeling in my stomach from, the nostalgia, the warmth, you know. Yeah. How about the new stuff? Are you a fan of any of these newer artists that have sort of stand on your shoulders and followed in your footsteps?

Do you have any favorites? Yeah. Of course. I mean, I love Rihanna. I love Beyonce. I love Janelle Ayaka. I love I love some of, I forget the last name. Anyway, I love her. And I love all the rap. I love everything. I'm not a, you know, I don't discriminate. I just go to the things that make me feel warm and make me feel comfortable and the things that make, you know, calm, the savage beast in me when the beast rises up. And so, you know, the stuff is great that everybody. everybody's doing. Oh, and I love Ella May. I love her. Um, yeah, some good stuff out here. Some really, really great stuff from, from the new generations, yeah. Is it cool for you to hear young artists like that say Mary J. Blige was one of my inspirations? How does that make you feel when you hear that? So good. It makes me feel so good

because you just, you know, you just, it's just good to know that people like you still. You know what I mean? You still have fans from another generation. that people are doing great things in a new generation, and they're paying homage to you. So it feels good. I'm flattered. I'm honored. I'm thankful.

We also got to talk about your acting. Power Book 2, Ghost, where you play Monet. It's an amazing character. How did you get involved in that show? I know you were a fan, of course, of power. How did this role come up for you? Well, 50 and I are friends. I never met Courtney before, but I had some ideas on my own, my production company, and we wanted to meet with them about that.

And then they wanted to meet with us about her, Monet. So it just all worked. And so when we got in the meetings, Courtney went right in, who were your friends? Did you know this character? I absolutely knew this character. I grew up with this character. She was my friends. 50, you know, he wanted it to happen.

Everybody wanted it to happen. And this is why it's here. It's here because they. They wanted it and I wanted it. What do you like about Monet? How do you describe her to people? What I love about Monet is that she's a survivor. She's a boss.

She's a boss. And like most mothers, most single parent mothers, you know, especially single parent mothers. They have to do everything. They have to be the man, the woman, everybody. And protect their kids, protect their legacy, protect their finances. And what makes them ruthless and murderers is that no one's going to hurt their children. So I know that woman. My mom is that woman.

All my friends do that woman. Pretty much every woman I know is Monet. You know, not everybody's a murder, but who knows? You never know, right? You never know. So for people who don't know, PowerBook 2 picks up, right, basically after the power finale, which was shocking to a lot of people. So for fans of power, how does Monet plug into the storyline here?

What's her role? Well, Monet's role is Tarique has to tutor a young man that's going to college. He's a basketball player. He has a scholarship. And in order for Tarique to stay in school, he has to tutor this guy. And this guy is Monet's nephew.

Right. So Tarik ends up becoming friends with Zeke, who's Monet's nephew. and Monet is, you know, all family, all celebrations. Zeke, he invites Tarik to this party. And there's a big celebration. And of course, Monet is introduced through that celebration because it's some real bad stuff going on.

But kids are doing the most. And so, yeah, so Zeke is, Zeke ends up being friends with Tarique. And the rest is, oh, wow. Yeah. We got to watch him or we got to use him or whatever we got to do. That's how Monet is thinking. Right.

Yeah. People just have to watch to see the dot, dot, dot, dot what comes after that. Yeah. Do you like acting this way, Mary Jay? I mean, it's like you've accomplished so much as an artist. And, of course, you've been an actor before. But how much do you like acting and how different of an experience is it for you than going out and standing on that stage? I like it.

I like acting because it's a challenge. It's hard. It's hard. Like singing is what I do. It's easy. It's like playing basketball, Jordan. It's like, whatever. But not whatever.

It's just easy. But this is a challenge because this is, this is, this is some work. Yeah. Some work. Yeah. But I think people would think the opposite. An actor would think, oh, I can't do what she does up on that stage. I guess it's the thing you're less familiar with looks like the challenge, right?

Yeah. And it gets harder. Like, I mean, it gets easier, but it gets harder when you want to get better. Right. Right. There's also Mary Word about this Amazon documentary you're working on. I know it's kind of down the road a little bit for you and you're shooting it right now. But a lot of people know your story. I don't know if everyone knows every detail of your story. But what was it like to start to think about that with Sean Combs, who you've worked with from the beginning on different projects, and just kind of sit down and talk through your life. Some of it great, the highest peaks and some of it, the lowest lows, as you've talked about before. What was it like to sit and talk? through that. Well, this is not a biopic. This is about the album My Life, which is a classic.

Right. My second album. And it's what started the movement between me and my fans and I. It's so much to talk about because you do have to go back to my childhood. You do have to go back. You have to go into my life and you have to go into my fans' life

because there's a lot of testimonials from them as well. And then it's a lot of live performances. And then there's a lot of, you know, interviews with me. And it's a lot the heavy stuff there too because this album was probably

I felt like I was at one of the lowest points in my life as a young woman and I survived it but the beauty of it

is we all survived it the fans you know all of us and when I put the album out in 1994 I had no idea that so many people were suffering like me I thought I was the only one

going through all the hell that I was going through and four million people went out purchased the album and told me, well, Mary, we're going through it too. And whatever you want, we want, we want to be happy. We want to be happy. You want joy, we want joy.

You know, you're the only woman. Yes, we're the only woman, too. So the album is a classic to so many people. And it's what started the movement. And that's why I- That's what the documentary is about. And how Puff was believed in me more than I believed in myself, you know, to even get me to that point.

I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear because you're coming off what's the 411 which goes like triple platinum your first time out becomes this iconic album that you were in a low point in your life for my life how do you explain that level of success but still feeling the way you felt i mean that was hard because success is when you can really be happy from the inside out i wasn't happy and i was successful with all these things and all this stuff and all these accolades i couldn't even enjoy it because I was too busy trying to numb myself out of it, trying to get out of it, trying to do anything, you know, that I could to get out, you know, to not feel the depression, to not feel the

insecurity, that, you know, there's a lot of insecurity, a lot of depression. So, yeah, that was a lot. And it was, it wasn't a good feeling a lot of it. But I tried to, I tried to have some good days as much as I could. But the truth of the matter was I had to learn how to love myself in order to really have some good days. I was telling you before we started how much your first album meant. To me, personally, it was the soundtrack for our high school years, and it was such a big deal, and I was looking back, and I forgot, you were only 21 years old when that album came out.

So you went from unknown to this album that just blew up. So it almost makes sense. How could anyone be ready for what came for you? How could you handle that? Do you remember that transition from Nobody Knows My Name or My Face to Everybody, knows my name and my face in the space of a few months. I mean, it was, it was crazy because the only thing on my mind when what's the 4-1-1

came out was getting my family out the projects, making my mother happy, making sure she never had to work again. So that's the only thing I was thinking about was survival, survival, survival, survival, so I couldn't really enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, you know, but I tried as much as I could, you know, to do whatever I needed to do. And the feeling was just, it was like, I didn't know I did something great. until like maybe recently in my life, you know? I didn't know what I did.

I didn't know I started a whole other genre of music. Puff and I started a whole little genre of music. I didn't know I made history until like later in my life. I didn't know that then. I didn't know. If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't even be here now because I'd be such an asshole then.

Real. And so I'm glad I'm glad I figured it out now because there's a lot of, there's a way more humility. Yeah, you don't want to know you changed music when you're 21 years old. You're right. You don't even ought to handle that. Well, I'm so happy I get to sit here and get a chance to thank you for that because that music meant so much. I made that mixtape for my high school girlfriend and she's in the house behind me. She's my wife and the mother of my children. So we owe you a big one, Mary. Thank you. Thank you. It's true.

Last thing, and then I'll let you go. Respect. You're in the film Respect playing Dina Washington. Jennifer Hudson's playing Aretha Franklin. I interviewed her and talked to her about that a couple of months ago. She said it was going to be amazing. She's thrilled. What was it like to play such a big character in Dina Washington in that film?

It was amazing. It was another powerful woman moment. Just I don't even know these women was so cold and crazy. I don't say crazy. Let's pull that back. But just like, you know, they weren't having it. They had to survive. So if anybody got in their way, like if Aretha got in Dinah's way, it was like, what are you doing?

It was, it felt so good to just turn, to just be that character. Was it fun to step back in time, go back to the 1950s and 60s and be that kind of woman? It's always fun to step back to the 1950s. The hair, the outfits, the makeup, the, the, the, the, the way you move, the way, you know, because they didn't move like us. We move like this. They moved like this and was talking all kind of junk and slitting them, you know, slitting their husband's throats.

They were very ladylike. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was a different time. Well, thank you so much for the time today, Mary. It was great to talk to you. And congratulations again. We can finish off this bottle now together. Yes, thank you.

My big thanks again to Mary for a great conversation. I hope I didn't weird her out with the mixtapes and how. deeply I loved her. I tried to push a lot of it down, but sometimes you just can't help yourself. That was so much fun. And my thanks to her as well for sending over the Sun Goddess Wine for our interview. My thanks, as always, to all of you for tuning in again this week. We have a lot more of these virtual interviews coming up this fall, brand new stuff for you. In the meantime, you can check out our entire library, a couple years worth, of great conversations with some of the biggest names in the world. Be sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And don't forget

to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. Thanks again for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.