Hail Mary JB?
When I first heard MJB in the early 90s, I was not particularly enthused. The admixture of R&B with Hip-Hop was unappealing to my pure Soul and R&B attuned ears. Besides, MJB was not in the vocal class of the greats like Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, etc. Neither did she compare to her contemporaries like Mariah Carey or Toni Braxton who emerged in the 1990s. Then one day, I heard, “Not Gonna Cry” in 1995 and I began to see MJB in a different light. That song sent me on a binge where I began to pay closer attention to all the songs from her two albums What’s the 411? (1992) and My Life (1994).
Even though she was battling drug addiction at that point in time, I had a sense of knowing that she would endure and overcome. Because she sang with a special kind of passion and she had stories to tell us about her life which had collective resonance. She was not a singing sensation. Her raspy pipes are average at best, but she embodied a refreshingly palpable pain and vulnerability never before seen that it arrested collective attention for its rawness and realness.
More than three decades later, MJB reigns supreme and has won herself the royalty honorifics “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul” and “Queen of R&B”. These are honours that are well-deserved owing to her consistency and resiliency over the years, and her role in the shaping and reframing of African American music. During this time frame, she has been known to drop an album every 2-3 years as a testament to her commitment and dedication. Every album showcases her personal growth and stylistic evolution over the years.
MJB has 9 Grammy Awards to her name and has released 15 studio albums and 83 singles. Ranked as the most successful artist in her genre, MJB is loved all over the world, having sold 100 million records worldwide. Her most popular songs include “Real Love”, “Not Gonna Cry”, “Be Without You” and her signature song “Family Affair”. The British have a special love for her which is demonstrably seen in her collaborations with George Michael “As” (1998), U2 “One” (The Breakthrough, 2005) and the album London Sessions (2014) which is produced in the UK and showcases a collaboration with British songwriters and producers like Emile Sande, etc.
MJB also enjoys the endorsment and recognition of multi-generational female peers in the industry like Whitney Houston who was a MJB fan, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan and Lauryn Hill. She has collaborated and covered songs made by some of the aforementioned in her capacity as the queen of covers. Such songs include Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing” (What’s the 411? 1992), Rose Royce’s “I’m Goin’ Down” (My Life 1994), Natalie Cole’s “Our Love” (Share My World 1997), Aretha Franklin’s “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman” (Share My World 1997), The GAP Band’s “I’m In Love” (Mary 1999), First Choice’s “Let No Man Put Asunder” (Mary 1999), Rufus & Chaka’s “Ain’t Nobody” (My Life II…2011), etc.
According to legend, MJB had set out to be a rapper, but the all-powerful music machine and reconsructor of destinies turned her into a singer. So, when Jaguar Wright tells the world that the former can’t sing, as a form of verbal assault, MJB receives a certain degree of leniency owing to the story of her entry into the industry and her ability to utilize her abilities to impress and impact her audience. She embodies honesty, authenticity, integrity, toughness and resiliency, traits that have kept her afloat and relevant for three decades despite lacking the theatrical vocal showmanship of singers like Patti LaBelle, etc.
Generally, it has always been the assumption that to flourish as a singer, a captivating voice is of utmost necessity which MJB apparently lacks. It then begs the question, why has MJB gained such relevance despite this seeming “deficiency”? In his discourse on the Elite controlled and run Music and Entertainment Industry, John Hamer asserts in his book The Falsification of History - Our distorted Reality (2013) that “Throughout the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first, music has been manipulated from its initial state of innocence, goodness and wholesomeness to become in many cases, downright vile and nasty” (549). It has become a conduit for “people to sing about pain, suffering, death, sadness and despair”. In his submission, “It is actually an essential aspect of the latter-day degeneration of music and the lowering of consciousness” (542).
We live in a world controlled by hidden entities who despise joy, peace , love and every imaginable good vibration. Observably, there is a constant war against equanimity, egalitarianism and harmony in our societies. Wherever leaders of nation-states have consciously worked towards delivering service to their population, contrarian forces work to scuttle such efforts. It then goes without saying that the goal is to keep the general populace in a state of impoverishment, perpetual suffering, stress, disease, sadness and fear. Consequently, music artists like MJB are employed to manipulate the consciousness of the listener through the dissemination of sad songs which mirror the state of the listener and keep them fixatedly hopeless. She then gets to enjoy rewards and accolades for a job well executed. Therein, lies the secret!
You may argue, but MJB sings about her experiences! But the answer would be a question which is “How many of these stories are true and verifiable, especially in a day and age when we know that celebrities are useful idiots engaged to lie and deceive the populace?”
I love MJB and appreciate and respect her longevity in the musicscape. However, when I listen to her music, it is done with caution keeping in mind that I live in a pathologically deceptive world. I value her brighter and happier songs above the depressive ones which have become her trade mark.
