Among Blige's most popular songs to date are " Family Affair", " Real Love", " Not Gon' Cry" and " Be Without You". The album gave Blige her first Billboard 200 top ten album, and all of her subsequent studio albums have charted in the top ten on this chart. īlige started her own musical career in 1992, releasing her multi-platinum-selling debut album, What's the 411? on MCA and Uptown Records. In 2012, VH1 ranked Blige ninth among "The 100 Greatest Woman in Music" listing. Moreover, she was ranked 100th on the list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2011, VH1 ranked Blige as the 80th greatest artist of all time. In March 2017, Billboard magazine ranked her 2006 song " Be Without You" as the most successful R&B/hip-hop song of all time, as it spent an unparalleled 75 weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, 15 of those weeks at number one. In 2009, Billboard magazine ranked Blige as the most successful female R&B/hip-hop artist of the past 25 years. Her discography consists of 14 top 10 Billboard 200 studio albums, two live albums, two remix albums and over eighty singles-including more than 20 as a featured artist. In September 1999, Rolling Stone bestowed her first album, What's the 411? (1992), as "genre-creating". Blige's genre-changing sound, in many ways, changed and shaped the sound for modern day R&B and blue-eyed soul artists. The "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul" and "Queen of R&B" (publications often refer to her as both honorific titles), Blige is uniquely credited as the first singer to release an album singing over hip-hop beats, which created the subgenre " hip hop soul" which fuses elements of soul, R&B and gospel style vocals over hip hop beats. She has released 15 studio albums, eight of which have achieved worldwide multi-million album sales. Blige began her career as a backing vocalist for Uptown Records in the early 1990s.
To honor the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul and her indelible catalogue of hits, let’s take a look at 15 of our favorite MJB songs through the years.Blige performing live at the Neighborhood Ball in Washington, D.C.
And the undisputed ESSENCE Festival favorite will also hit New Orleans to commemorate the festival’s 25th anniversary while also celebrating 25 years of her iconic 1994 album, My Life. This Sunday (June 23), she will add to her repertoire when she’s honored at the 19th annual BET Awards ceremony with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her exceptional body of work across genres and industries.
After countless nominations over the years for categories like Best R&B Artist and Best song, an unprecedented number of Billboard and Grammy Awards, over 75 million records sold worldwide and so much more, she shows no signs of stopping. Who knew the little girl from Yonkers would go on to be not just music but entertainment royalty? She has secured numerous endorsement deals with M.A.C., Pepsi, Target and more while also conquering both the small and big screen, even being nominated for two Academy Awards for her role in the critically-acclaimed film, Mudbound. Although she’s faced her fair share of heartaches, heartbreaks, and hardships, Mary never let her personal life or the pressures of the music industry keep her from becoming a master of her craft. Blige has kept her foot on our necks and provided the soundtrack for most of our lives. Since bursting onto the scene in 1992 asking us What’s the 411?, Mary J.