[ARTIST] Mary J. Blige

View fullsize

”I know who I am and what I can do. With each album, it’s just me continuing to grow.”

Pure, unadulterated and empowering. That has been Mary J. Blige’s calling card ever since her 1992 multi-platinum debut album, What’s the 411? And in the ensuing years, the singer/songwriter’s musical strong suit has attracted an intensely loyal fan base—responsible for propelling worldwide sales of more than 50 million albums.

With a track record of eight multi-platinum albums, nine Grammy Awards (plus a staggering 29 nominations) and four American Music Awards, Blige is only getting started. The singer returns just as fierce and compelling on her 10th studio album, the aptly titled “My Life II … The Journey Continues (Act 1).” Released via Blige’s Geffen/Interscope-distributed Matriarch label, the new project doubles as the sequel to Blige’s 1994 classic My Life.

“The original My Life started a movement,” reflects Blige. “And every album since then, from Share My Worldand No More Drama to The Breakthrough and Stronger With Each Tear, has marked a point of growth and evolution for me and my fans. What’s consistent is the fact that we all remain challenged in life to get to that next level. That’s one of the reasons for this sequel. And given the climate right now—the recession, war and other issues—I remembered there was so much healing with the first My Life. So that was another perspective behind my recording the album.”

Blige once again fashions a moving testimony about love, devotion and inner strength. Providing the album’s cornerstone is the track “Living Proof.” Also the closing song for the hit movie “The Help,” the spare yet powerful “Living Proof” speaks volumes about life’s hard-won rewards. It also resonates with Blige’s own growth as a woman and a singer/songwriter whose innate connection with her fans is unshakable. Bearing witness is the song’s second verse: “So glad the worst is over \ Cuz it almost took me out \ I can start living now \ I feel like I can do anything \ Finally I’m not afraid to breathe.”

“My fans and I are living examples that you can turn a negative situation into something positive,” declares Blige. “Conceptually, people have heard me like this. But artistically, with just a guitar, I don’t think they’ve ever heard me like that before.”

And Blige’s artistic growth doesn’t stop there. She goes toe to toe with Drake on her current uptempo chart-climber “Mr. Wrong,” then displays equal doses of fervor and naked honesty, respectively, on “25/8” (sampling the late Heavy D gem “Now That We Found Love”) and “No Condition.” She taps her rap alter ego Brook Lynn for the romance-sparked “Midnight Drive.” And as she did in 1993 with the 1975 Rufus featuring Chaka Khan hit “Sweet Thing,” Blige stamps new meaning onto a dance-floor revamp of the group’s 1983 classic “Ain’t Nobody.” Rounding out Blige’s life sequel are guest turns from Nas, Busta Rhymes, Rick Ross and a first-time pairing with Beyoncé on the diva-licious “Love a Woman.”

“A lot of women are misunderstood and a lot of men think they know what to do. But they don’t,” says Blige with a laugh. “This overall topic is very important right now.”

To help map our her Life journey, Blige collaborated with such intuitive producers as Jim Jonsin, Rico Love, Jerry “Wonda” Duplessis, Danja, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Sean Garrett, Tricky Stewart and the Underdogs. “Whoever has the right track that grabs my spirit, moves me and goes with the topics I’m coming up with … those are the producers I go for,” says Blige about her creative process.

Born in the Bronx, New York, Blige began moving people with her soulful voice when at 18 she signed with Andre Harrell’s Uptown Records in 1989, becoming the MCA-distributed label’s youngest and first female artist. Influenced at an early age by the music of Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan and Gladys Knight, Blige brought her own gritty, urban-rooted style—fusing hip-hop, soul and honest, frank lyrics—to the forefront on her 1992 debut album What’s the 411? The multi-platinum set, executive produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs, quickly spun off several hits, including two No. R&B No. 1s: “You Remind Me” and “Real Love.”

Earning the nickname the “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul,” Blige began forging a unique niche for herself on the more personal second album, 1994’s My Life. Co-writing a major portion of the album this time around, Blige reaped such hits and signature songs as “Be Happy” and a cover of Rose Royce’s 1976 hit “I’m Goin’ Down.” At the time she was dealing with several serious issues in her life, including drug addiction, alcoholism and an abusive relationship.

Notes Blige, “When I went first went into the studio to work on My Life II, it occurred to me how strong I’ve become since then. And that what has made me strong is not just the joy and great things happening in my life but the trials and difficulties that cause you to want to move out of that uncomfortable place to get to the next stage. With the first My Life album, I didn’t have that understanding. I just did not know why I was suffering so bad, why I was hurting.”

And thus began the Blige movement: connecting legions of fans who identify with and have accompanied her throughout her personal travails and growth—all fearlessly related through her music. Each subsequent album reads like a chapter from an autobiography: Share My World (1997), Mary (1999), No More Drama(2001), Love & Life (2003), the multiple Grammy-winning and hit-spewing The Breakthrough (2005), Growing Pains (2007) and Stronger with Each Tear (2009). Along the way, she’s lined up a string of hit singles, including “Not Gon’ Cry,” “Love Is All We Need,” Seven Days,” “All That I Can Say,” “Family Affair” and “Just Fine.”

Music isn’t the only thing keeping Blige busy. She is the co-founder of the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN), whose mission is to empower women from all walks of life to reach their full individual potential. Flexing her talents as an entrepreneur, Blige launched her Melody line of sunglasses in 2009. In 2010, her “My Life” perfume became the first to sell more than 60,000 bottles in one day on the Home Shopping Network—with $1 from each purchase donated to FFAWN. A second perfume, “My Life Blossom,” was introduced in summer 2011.

Blige, who co-penned “I Can See in Color” for 2009’s “Precious” soundtrack, is also ramping up her acting career. She’ll appear next June in the Adam Shankman-directed “Rock of Ages,” the theatrical version of the Tony-nominated Broadway musical with stars Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin and Catherine Zeta Jones.

As she continues her multi-faceted journey, however, one constant remains for Blige: her fans. “Being connected with their lives is what keeps me going,” she says. “They’re the reason why I am where I am: confident in knowing who I am and what I can do. With each album, it’s just me continuing to grow. And that’s the takeaway I want for my fans with My Life II … to please look at what we’ve survived and how strong we are now.”

For more info on Mary J. Blige, visit:

www.maryjblige.com

www.thequeeninlondon.com

[ARTIST] Janelle Monae

View fullsize

At long last, Janelle Monáe—the inimitable, award-winning, songwriter, performer, producer, CoverGirl and avant-garde funkstress—is back again, ready to release her another full-length “emotion picture” to the masses.  But as always, Janelle is not ready to talk about music just yet.  She’d rather talk about her past and how those fertile powerful experiences forced her to create her coming album The Electric Lady. 

According to Monáe, “I went back to Kansas City after my tour for my debut album The ArchAndroid.  And when I looked around me, I decided I wanted to make a raw, revealing album all about my life and the things I’d experienced in my community— about the laughter in the parks, the jams bumping in the cars, the jokes told over kitchen tables, all the life and warmth and struggles I felt there.  But I also wanted to figure out how to take Kansas City to the future…like a surreal Parliament album with lyrics by Octavia Butler and album art by Salvador Dali.”

As time passed, Monáe found herself increasingly drawn to the stories and experiences of the strong women in her life, and their ability to electrify and inspire individuals to do the right thing.  “At some point I realized that the true heart and glue of the community were the women.  My mama and grandmamma and my aunties and who to this day, are some of the most powerful beings on the planet.  Under their guidance, I went from cleaning houses everyday in my maid outfit to the world-traveling performer I am today.  They made me believe in myself enough to move from Kansas and pursue my dreams.  A lot of folks think I work hard onstage because of James Brown.  But they’ve never met my mother!”

Inspired by her mother and other matriarchs, Monáe began to write lyrics and songs about rebel women who refused to be marginalized and dared to live their life boldly and unapologetically in a distant future.  According to Monáe, “When I returned to the studio, I felt I had to do my part. Through my art, I had to help create the woman I wanted to see around me.  Incidentally, during concerts, for years I’d been painting this woman’s physique—the silhouette of her hips—

I have hundreds of these paintings with the same feminine figure over and over…this glowing Technicolor woman…seen from behind…regal, powerful and electric…My colleagues and friends told me to name this mysterious figure because she seemed to be a totem, a powerful symbol for me.  So I named her The Electric Lady, and that’s where the album’s title came from.”

As she began the audacious task of following up on her acclaimed debut LP The ArchAndroid—an album that topped critic’s lists in 2010 all over the world—she took along some trusty, brave companions: the original music producers of The ArchAndroid, Nate “Rocket” Wonder and Chuck Lightning of Wondaland Productions.  And together they crafted a new strain of jamming music they called “ish.”  In the hip hop community, “ish” is a euphemism for the profane four-letter word for excrement, but as Monáe explains, they set out, like proverbial alchemists, to turn lesser substances into gold. “This entire project was produced by Wonder & Lightning.  We set out to make a soundtrack for the Obama era, something that spoke to the beautiful, majestic and revolutionary times that we’re living in.  The musical language we’re speaking now is called ish. In the African-American community, we’ve been turning left-overs (like chitlins) and social depredation (like poverty) into delicacies and fine art for years.  So we just set out to turn the rubbish all around us into something beautiful. Ish is the bowtie on the funk.”

From the sound of The Electric Lady, ish is an urgent and dangerous form of dance music, rebel music that forces one to fight, jam, and fall in love.  Like on The ArchAndroid, the sonic textures of the album are varied, and the past and present come together to explode and create a mind-blowing future for pop and soul music.  For example, wondrous strings reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield and Bernard Herrmann orchestrations abound, Hendrixian guitar solos soar, Outkast-like raps float over punk rock riffs; defiant socially-conscious lyrics extol the virtues of soul-searching and fighting for change, while the funk simply melts your speakers: 808s boom and Prince-like synthesizers squiggle in your earhole, making it veritably impossible to just sit still.

“As we like to say at Wondaland, the booty don’t lie.  The booty always obeys the LAW OF THE JAM. You can’t hate on something that makes your booty move, that makes you jam and have a good time. And the booty will always tell you the truth of a given situation.  You can always tell what a community or a person truly believes by just studying the actions of their booties at any given time.  They can claim they love this other person or culture, or believe in this peaceful god, or really want freedom, but do their actions prove it? Their actions, what their booties do or don’t do, that tells you the truth.”

The recording process was fun, rewarding, but also strained by Monáe’s newfound need to be more courageous and personally revealing in her storytelling.  “To do this album properly, I had to revisit some turbulent chapters in my life, deal with some questions and experiences left over from my childhood.  There were so many things I had questions about.  Sexual things. Racial Things. Gender things.  Memories.  Things I thought I had left behind me.  New things I was discovering. But ultimately I found myself emulating my mother and grandmother and using their strength to surpass my fear.  I had to do that before I could write and sing and perform these new songs convincingly.  I’m not the kind of artist that can perform something night after night, if I don’t believe in it, or if it’s not true to me or my experience.”

Monáe was also inspired and emboldened by her truly amazing collaborators: Roman GianArthur, the wunderkind and Wondaland Arts Society artist-in-residence that, once again, provided the album’s magisterial overture; the soul star Miguel, who crooned his way effortlessly to the stars and helped provide a prime baby-making moment on the lush ballad “Primetime”; Erykah Badu, her self-ascribed “twin,” who used her cosmic grace and poise to help turn the first single “Q.U.E.E.N.” into a female empowerment anthem and a runaway smash; and none other than her lifetime hero, the legendary Prince, who contributed in countless ways, musically, vocally, and most importantly, spiritually—by conversing with her from his purple telephone in Minneapolis, whenever she was weak and unsure which artistic direction to go.

As she worked, Monáe found herself, as always, drawn again into her other love, science fiction, and the exploits of Cindi Mayweather, the heroine of her first EP Metropolis.  In fact, the new album serves as Suite IV and V of her Metropolis saga, and in this chapter, the android hero Cindi moves from self-realization to self-actualization: from the knowledge and owning of her unique superpowers, to actually using them to better the world around her.  Monáe says, “I like to think you can hear me using my superpowers this time.  And not just talking or wondering about them. The Electric Lady is like the big action sequence in the third act of an epic film.  Every party this album starts, or every baby born because of it, is actually another victory against the Great Divide.”

As she continued to work on the album, Monáe found herself displaying these superpowers in new ways in the recording studio, and found that some of her best creative work was done when she was running entire production sessions by herself.  “There were key moments like the rap on Q.U.E.E.N. where I needed to be alone.  I dimmed the lights, setup the mic and engineered myself.  I just let the words and sounds flow through me.  Overall, I’ve been feeling stronger as a producer, as well as writer.”  In addition, on this album, Monáe had the chance not only to produce herself, but also to produce her collaborators Miguel, Erykah Badu and Prince. “I’m still humbled by the collaborations and partnerships I have on this album. I actually got the chance to produce and write for some of my heroes.  And through my recording label the Wondaland Arts Society, I’ve been executive producing the artists I love.  Wondaland artists such as Deep Cotton and Roman GianArthur.  I’m proud of the Wondaland movement, and this new phase in my life as an artist, producer, and businesswoman.”

The fruits and rewards of this artistic journey can be heard in ample measure on the album’s courageous, outrageously funky first single “Q.U.E.E.N,” which features the queen herself, Erkyah Badu. “Erykah’s one of my best friends, and we talk about everything.  That particular song really developed from a deep conversation we were having about a woman’s place in the world. And how we were expected to be freaks and muses and virgin goddesses all at the same time by patriarchal cultures and religions.  Rather than answer all the questions we just decided to jam to them and let the booties decide.”

[EXCLUSIVES][THE MAGAZINE] Faith20

View fullsize

Without a doubt, this has been the opportunity of a lifetime. On a humble, our love for Faith Evans and her musical legacy brought along the idea of commemorating her debut album, FAITH. As many of you know, this classic LP that changed the landscape of R&B music was released in 1995. The 20-year anniversary was August 29, 2015, so to commemorate this special album, we put together a special issue with #NothingButFaith! That's right, there's now an issue of Urban Grandstand Digital devoted to everything there is about Faith Evans' debut! In that issue, we had the amazing opportunities of catching up with some of the masterminds that worked together in putting this album together. We have exclusives with Prince Charles Alexander, Herb Middleton, and in the final hour, we caught up with Q. Parker from the R&B group 112. In the issue, we also talk about the singles that were released, as well as the remixes that resulted, and how the entire recording process went along. Access our Special Issue by clicking HERE!

Now, We're thrilled to present to you a super-exclusive interview with the lady of the hour! Yes, we have an exclusive with Faith Evans herself, and she gives us the rundown on the album, the process of putting it together, BIG's influence throughout the process, and so much more. You definitely don't want to miss this!     Access FAITH20 by clicking HERE!