Its 1993 remix album became the first album by a singer to have a rapper on every song, popularizing rap as a featuring act. In 1992, Blige released her debut album, What's the 411?, which is credited for introducing the mix of R&B and hip hop into mainstream pop culture. Her career began in 1991 when she was signed to Uptown Records. She has been nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards, including one for her supporting role in the film Mudbound (2017) and another for its original song ' Mighty River', becoming the first person nominated for acting and songwriting in the same year. Often referred to as the ' Queen of Hip-Hop Soul', Blige has won nine Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, and ten Billboard Music Awards. remains a model R&B diva who paved the way for myriad successors, including Beyoncé and Ariana Grande.Mary Jane Blige ( / b l aɪ ʒ/ born January 11, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, and actress. Even as she’s gone Hollywood (earning an Academy Award nomination for 2017’s Mudbound), Mary J. Mary (1999) saw her move toward a more classic sound, though 2001’s smash “Family Affair” swung back toward hip-hop that fertile tension has remained in her music since. Blige’s life was never separate from her art, and fans have followed her through addiction, marriage, divorce, and therapy, connecting with songs like “Not Gon’ Cry” and “No More Drama” out of deep identification: Here was an artist who sang women’s realities as they were almost never presented in popular music-and who always came out stronger.

She and Sean Combs crafted her 1992 debut, What’s the 411?, which spawned the ubiquitous and beloved jam “Real Love” and helped set the template for R&B’s marriage to hip-hop. Her voice is elastic, scrappy, and versatile, with more than a hint of world-weary grit, and when a chance recording of Anita Baker’s “Caught Up in the Rapture” came before Uptown Records execs in 1988, the label immediately snapped her up as its youngest (and first female) signee. Born Mary Jane Blige in the Bronx in 1971, Blige was raised mainly in Yonkers, NY, where she grew up listening to the greats: Aretha, Chaka, and Gladys Knight. Dubbed the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul in the ’90s, Blige came off as tough and streetwise (unlike many of her contemporaries), and she could go toe to toe with rappers, including JAY Z, Method Man, and more recently Kendrick Lamar.

Blige is that rare singer who can channel your pain-and then drag you onto the dance floor to sweat it away.

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