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And no hip-hop audience had missed the merciless and skillful rhymes of Ice-Cube, then affiliated with the Nation of Islam, who put out the explosive hit “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.” Mary J. They had been politicized by the revolutionary and ultra-masculine rhymes of Chuck D in Public Enemy. Hip-hop audiences had grown used to the gangster tales of the rap group Niggaz Wit’ Attitude (N.W.A.), whose hit “Fuck tha Police” went multi-platinum. Blige was only twenty years old at the time and she brought something fresh and soft into an arena that had been dominated by competing hardcore male m.c.s. Blige-marrying two forms of music that had had a notoriously hostile relationship for years-at a level of innovation that no one had seen since Teddy Riley introduced new jack swing. with unrelenting hip-hop, heavy beats with the clean, clear, sincere voice of Mary J.
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Weeks later, her voice shot across the country with the release of the single “You Remind Me,” from the soundtrack of the movie “Strictly Business.” The song combined R. It didn’t matter that I had forfeited that chance to hear Mary J. So, in the spirit of a true ghetto girl who’d rather have the attention for herself, I persuaded him to skip it with me. Blige would receive her formal introduction to the industry. Even the man who was my date at Impact-and who later became my husband-was excited about the showcase, where Mary J. I had never seen guys, popular guys, so united and solid around a female performer-not MC Lyte, or Queen Latifah, or any young sister, for that matter. “Stop through and check her out.” I was surprised, honestly, to see him and Uptown’s street team so enthusiastic about a young woman’s talent. “We’re showcasing Mary today, Souljah,” he told me with a smile and a certain confidence. He had quickly earned a reputation as someone who always knew who was hot and who was not. While other students had become activists or jockeyed for positions in sororities and fraternities, Puffy had emerged as a promoter who could pull in the top stars of the moment-from Heavy D. at Uptown Records then, but I had known him since he was a student at Howard University. Blige T-shirt-that meant something to me. Blige-The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul.” Damn, that’s a big title to give anyone, I thought, but it didn’t mean that much to me. Not long afterward, I went to the Impact Conference in Atlantic City-an annual gathering of musicians and music-industry heads-and ran into a group of young black men wearing T-shirts that read “Mary J.
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I meet a lot of nasty people.” He glanced at me in the rearview mirror and I smiled politely, not wanting to be tossed into the “nasty” pit. But what I like most is that she’s really nice-just a nice person. The other night, she let me hear one of her songs when I took her home from the studio.
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But one night the driver interrupted my thoughts to ask, “Do you know Mary?” Most of the time, I liked to ride in silence. So this chauffeur was just about the only working-class white guy I could claim to know. The white people I usually encountered were power brokers and decision makers who could take a girl like me, package her talent, and offer her a seat on top of the world-or dismiss her into the valley of obscurity. I had recently served as the female voice of Public Enemy, the political black-nationalist hip-hop band, and now I was finishing up my first solo CD for Epic Records.
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He would pick me up at my apartment, at 123rd Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, and carry me into the music-business world of midtown Manhattan. There’s this white guy who used to be my driver.