Mary J. Blige

ary

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Advanced

Standard: British Accent

Working on Happiness

MARY J. BLIGE

Mary J. Blige is the unofficial “Queen of hip-hop soul” and has been a major part of the music scene ever since making her debut in 1992 with the album, What’s The 411? Yet her private life has often been traumatic. Born in Bronx, she grew up in a rough housing project in Yonkers, and experience that left her with both physical and emotional scars. And yet, as she explains in this interview, which was recorded in order to promote her latest album, Breakthrough, she sees music as way of finding happiness:

Mary J. Blige

(African American accent)

Happiness is something that I am working on every day to attain, to maintain, to keep, in my life. Like I need it, because if don’t have it, I’m going to die, because I’ve been so miserable all my entire life since I was a child that I cannot do this anymore like this. Now, whoever wants to do it with me, let’s go, whoever wants to do it with me, let’s go, whoever wants to sing a sad song still, then go sing it with some other artist, you know, because I have enough sad songs on the My life album, I have enough on the Share My album. I have enough sad songs – even on this album, “Father In You” was a sad record, “Enough Cryin’” is sad, but, you know, the beat is up, you know. “Aint Really Love” (informal usage I’m not)  is sad. And these are the things that I still deal with, you know, “Baggage” is sad, you know, the fact that “When is he going to cheat?” you know, that’s what I still carry, you know.

THE MEANING OF THE WORD

Indeed the choice of the word “Breakthrough” was deliberate:

Mary J. Blige:

Yeah, this is a breakthrough and the breakthrough is being honest with myself. What is that Mary wants? Mary wants…I want everybody to be happy, but I can’t save the world. I want myself to be happy, but that’s gonna (informal usage going to)  take a lifetime and I have to make the choice to be happy and I have chosen to, although it’s very, very hard, but at the same time I’m getting somewhere. I have grown.

In addition to her musical career, Mary J. Blige has also tried her hand at acting. She particularly enjoyed appearing in an off-Broadway play, The Exonerated, a couple of years ago:

Mary J. Blige:

It was real professional, because you had to lock your mind into this one thing every single night, it’s..like doing it the exact same way every single night, and it was really nice ‘cause, you know, the people that were in the play with me, they were so warm, and you know, it was unlike the music business, it was a whole ‘nother atmosphere, they really care about you. And, at the same time, it was depressing because I had to bring this character to life, her name was Sunny, and she went to jail for 20 years for something that she didn’t do but, in the midst of her being in prison, she learned how to be positive in her down time, and that’s why they called her Sunny, ‘cause she learned how to, you know, be happy in the time of troubles. And that’s what I am today. That’s what I’m doing, and that’s what I’ve been doing and that’s what, you know, breakin’ through is, that’s…why I called the album “The Breakthrough that’s what a breakthrough is.