What type of stuff was the press saying at that time? So I was like, on this record, people are gonna know you’re a singer. I didn’t like people throwing stones at something they didn’t understand. I was trying to flip the bullshit image, whether it bothered her or not. The mission for me was to change a lot of the negative press that was happening with her because she was this new thing that people didn’t understand. Several people talk in the documentary about how they felt a lot of pressure to top the success of What’s the 411? Puff and Mary are the most New York-ity people you can ever be around. And back then in New York, at the parties, they’d be playing a lot of the original soul records. Mary wanted to do that Curtis Mayfield song - Snoop used a little bit of it in his album. Mary j blige my life album songs full#That time was full of soul kitchen type of shit. We were listening to Doggystyle when we made Ready to Die. I used to look at her like a sister: Where are these guys, let’s go whoop their ass! She started drying her tears on these songs.Īll this East Coast vs. ![]() I used to hear her tell stories of what was going on, but I wasn’t really involved in that. That’s the tissue you need to dry your tears. She’s going through a situation I’m bringing Curtis Mayfield to the table. Me talking to her, our real connection came from that: She knew a lot of the records I knew growing up. I’m from D.C., where we have a thing called Quiet Storm on the radio. She ended up walking up talking to me - “yo, this is one of my favorite records!”ĭid you two have a vision for how you wanted the album to sound?Īt that particular time in music, you look at what we were doing with B.I.G., you look at what was happening with Snoop, you look at what Jermaine Dupri was doing, it was a soul and Seventies funk thing happening. I just did the opposite, stood back, respected her space. I know her energy at that time was everybody was coming at her - she’s this new young hip-hop phenomenon, and everyone wanted a piece of her. Once she’s actually in the studio recording this one song, I meet her. I wasn’t initially scheduled to do shit else but that one song. This one song comes up that she’s not supposed to have, and she loved it. She was picking through like a thousand tapes and she hated everything. But the song got sent to Puff, and then Mary heard it. One song in particular got everything started: “Be With You.” I wasn’t even supposed to send that song - it was actually for a group in DC. ![]() I sent “Think of You” as a record for Mary, but Puff ended up using that for Usher. The songs I was sending him to give him an idea of me as a producer, he ended up using them for the album. I already had a lot of the My Life album done before I met Puff. So when I heard that What’s the 411? album, I’m like, “ this is out of what I’m thinking.” At that time, I was doing a lot of merging of hip-hop with live instruments, because I played eight different instruments. Hiram could get me to TLC Puffy could get me to Mary. I was seeking management at that time, and it was between two people, Hiram Hicks or Puffy. Not only did the young beat-maker serve as a crucial behind-the-scenes presence during the making of My Life, blending rich Seventies soul with radio-ready hip-hop, Thompson also created “Big Poppa” and “Me & My Bitch” for a fresh-faced New York rapper by the name of the Notorious B.I.G. ![]() who had played with the famous Go-Go pioneer Chuck Brown. 1994 was a breakout year for Thompson, a multi-instrumentalist from D.C. Diddy and the rising producer Chucky Thompson. “I have 13 albums,” she declares early on in her new Amazon documentary, released on Friday, “but my second, My Life, is my most important.”Īfter working with a grab-bag of big names - including Devante Swing of Jodeci and the rappers Busta Rhymes and Grand Puba - on her debut, What’s the 411?, Blige narrowed her focus for its follow-up, working almost exclusively with P. Some artists struggle to determine which of their releases is the most vital - it’s like asking a parent to pick a favorite child.
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