Mary Jane Blige

Mary Jane Blige (  born January 11, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. A recipient of nine Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards, Blige has recorded eight multi-platinum albums. She is the only artist with Grammy Award wins in Pop, Rap, Gospel, and R&B. Blige has received the World Music Legends Award for combining hip hop and soul in the early 1990s. She was ranked number 100 in the list of 100 greatest singers of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. Blige started her musical career in 1992, releasing her multi-platinum US selling debut album, What's the 411? on MCA Records and Uptown. What's the 411? gave Blige her first Billboard 200 top ten album, which has continued since the release of her debut album until her latest album, Stronger with Each Tear (2009), which became Blige's seventh consecutive album to debut at number one or number two on the Billboard 200. As of 2010, Blige has sold over 50 million albums and 15 million singles worldwide. Known to the music world as the reigning "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul", Mary would go on to be responsible for changing the construct of R&B music. Credited for the musical marriage of Hip-Hop and R&B, she introduced elements of hip-hop/rap into modern, contemporary r&b/pop music. Using old school hip-hop samples and loops, Mary would bridge "the gap between R&B and rap in a way that no female singer had before." . Ethan Brown of The New Yorker says that albums "What's the 411?" and "My Life", in hindsight, invented "the sample-heavy sound that reinvigorated urban radio and became a blueprint for nineties hip-hop and R&B." . Brown further concludes that Mary's "duets with the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man and Ghostface Killah set the trend for collaborations between rappers and R&B songbirds like Mariah Carey."   Tom Horan of The Telegraph comments that Blige, being a hugely influential figure in popular music, "invented what is now called R&B by successfully combining female vocals with muscular hip hop rhythm tracks. All over the world, that recipe dominates today's charts." Called one of the "most explosive, coming-out displays of pure singing prowess" and "one of the most important albums of the nineties", What's the 411? saw Blige pioneer "the movement that would later become Neo soul, generating gripping songs that were also massive radio hits." Blige has received notable awards and achievements. In 2010, she was ranked 80th on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Artist of All Time. . Blige was listed as one of the 50 most influential R&B singers by Essence. Rolling Stone magazine ranked My Life at number 279 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time[52]. The album was also included on Time's list of the 100 Greatest albums of All Time. Alternately called the "Queen of R&B" for her unprecedented success in the realm of R&B, Blige has amassed eight number one albums on the R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart - a record for a female artist. Blige is also the only artist to have won Grammy's in the R&B, Rap, Pop, and Gospel fields.