The Drama Queen Returns

11/09/2001 5:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Johnson Jr

"I've always wanted to make a record with just music and hardly no samples," Mary J. Blige says, referring to Mary, her double-platinum 1999 album. The mellow record shied away from the pulsating, knocking beats that earned her the title "Queen Of Hip-Hop Soul"; with production from Lauryn Hill, an amazing ballad with Aretha Franklin, and a moving song about breaking up with a man who refuses to claim his child with another woman, Mary seemed to have made the transition to a calmer musical realm. But her intention was not to abandon her hip-hop roots, so in 2001, she resumes partying with the Dr. Dre-produced "Family Affair," the first single from her sixth album, No More Drama, and her first number one hit.

Where Mary explored a more mature sound, No More Drama celebrates life. "Family Affair" is fun, infused with Mary's silly, made-up language; "Poem" announces her improved self-esteem; the title track celebrates her decision to eliminate the nonsense from her life.

When songwriters and producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis played "No More Drama" for Mary, she knew the song was written specifically for her. She could immediately relate to the song's lyrics that pledge, "No more pain, no more game, no drama...no more tears, no more fears, no drama," as the theme music for The Young And The Restless soap opera plays in the background. The song seemed to chronicle Mary's life. Surviving on the celebrity diet of alcohol, drugs, late-night parties, and men, Mary still looked and sounded great, but she was deteriorating inside, and no one seemed to notice.

"When I tell you there was nobody, there was nobody," Mary explains. "Everybody was in the same boat at the same time, from family to friends just wanting to get drunk and high with me. 'Cause there was no one around saying, 'No gin after the show, Mary. No hanging out. You got a tour to do. You got work to do.' Everybody wanted to hang out every single night if I wanted to. If I was dead tired, I said, 'I'm dead tired, but I'm going to hang out anyway.' Nobody cared."

It took meeting her boyfriend for Mary to realize she had a problem. Then, "a stranger from the outside that [she] was attracted to," Mary's unnamed beau managed to open her eyes to the downside of partying and drugs without putting her down. When he asked her if having a good time and getting high was all that mattered to her, it made her think. "It started making me feel like sh-t. Like, 'Damn, is this all I do?' And no matter how much I fought it, fought it, and fought it, I realized how ignorant and prideful I had been. He didn't put me down, not once. I [realized] I was putting me down every time I picked up the liquor, every time I picked up the cocaine, every time I did whatever the case may be."

Restructuring her priorities has helped her realize that her relationship with God is what's most important in life, especially in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Part of her refocusing includes reading her bible daily. So when President Bush cited Psalm: 23, her favorite passage, during an address on the day of the crisis, Mary understood his point of reference. "What the 23rd Psalm is saying is the Lord is my shepherd, not the President," Mary says. "So basically, [Bush] was telling us that, 'If y'all don't understand that this is personal between you and God, then I can't save you when they start blowing up buildings.' Because [Bush is] going to keep sending people to war, he's going to keep fighting this terrorism."

And as Mary fights to resist the temptations of her past, she spends more time focusing on more uplifting things--like her visiting Southern California high schools to talk to students, and learning how to play the piano and guitar. "I already got my first 'No More Drama' and 'The Young And Restless' keys down," Mary laughs about her trials on the piano she has in her home. "I'm learning some Al Green on the guitar. I'm just setting myself up for tour. If I learn it for tour, that's cool; if I don't, that's cool too. Everything is hard. The piano is hard, the guitar. But what's going to make it as easy is when I look at it as second-nature, and stop looking at it as something to learn."

Considering her pervious issues with drugs, alcohol, and relationships--not to mention her experiences championing a new genre of music--she will surely conquer the piano and guitar, and anything else she put her mind to, in due time.