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. on 25 June (21).Some artists struggle to determine which of their releases is the most vital - it’s like asking a parent to pick a favorite child. It will debut on on Amazon Prime in the U.S. The film, executive produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs and Quincy Jones“, includes commentary from friends including Alicia Keys and Taraji P. “There’s just something really powerful about inspiring each other to wanna live to see another day,” she explains. She credits her fans with helping to keep her alive. The only thing I think that kept us guided was the music.
“There was a lot wrong… I needed to get out. “In the neighbourhood we lived in, it’s like prison,” she adds. He walked out on the family when the singer was only four. In the film, Mary also recounts her rough childhood, much of which was spent in a housing project in Yonkers, New York with an alcoholic mother and an abusive father, who was a Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Most of the times I just was just depressed and didn’t want to live.” My Life is probably my darkest album, at one of the darkest times I’ve had. I didn’t know that so many people felt the same way. Blige’s My Life“, she says, “I had it all inside and I was able to sing it and write it. In the trailer for her new documentary, “ Mary J. The Grammy-winning singer reveals she “didn’t want to live” during her darkest days and she used those feelings to create a string of hits. Blige‘s break-out album “My Life” was inspired by a deep depression. The ‘Be Without You’ hitmaker admits she fell into dark place and was so depressed that she wanted to die before she released her critically-acclaimed studio album back in 1994.ĪceShowbiz – Mary J.
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