Often referred to as the “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul”, the career of Mary J Blige has been a long and highly prolific one. The Yonkefrs vocalist has worked alongside other skilled singers and with the best rappers in the culture.
In 1998, Blige collaborated with Method Man on his track ‘I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By,’ which shot straight to the top of the charts. The duet with Method Man was a reincarnation of the 1968 Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell track ‘You’re All I Need’, which is a well-known love song.
However, prior to her joint track with the Wu-Tang Can rhymer, Blige teamed up with Jay-Z, who recruited her for his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, in 1996. Their song, entitled ‘Can’t Knock The Hustle,’ was not a commercial smash but landed at number seven on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs Chart. Blige was already one of the hottest new singers of the moment at the time, so it’s no surprise that Jay-Z wanted to have her featured on a song.
That said, Mary J Blige has been collaborating with hip-hop artists ever since and, as the “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul”, she has a fair share of opinions about the new generation of rappers currently in the game.
In a 2014 appearance on Power 105.0’s radio show The Breakfast Club, Blige admitted that she loved ‘Hot N*gga’ emcee Bobby Shmurda, stating, “I like that Bobby [Shmurda]! I saw the video too. I was like ‘Yes, the kids need this. They need to see that feeling.’ Like that reminds us of when we were growing up.
She continued, “That Bobby Shmurda…I listen to ‘Shook Ones’ radio on Pandora. I’m still Hip Hop til the day I die. I can’t help it. It’s in me. It’s in my DNA… Drake is one of the best of his generation. He just is to me.”
She then recalled the making of ‘Can’t Knock The Hustle’, telling the hosts DJ Envy, Angela Yee and Charlemagne Tha God, “Damon Dash asked me to do it. And they played me the record in the studio and I was—I lost it. And I got on the record. He was dope then. And it was his first album. So, the record was already crazy.”
The vocalist concluded, “I just sang to it…I saw that he was something incredible and fresh, and the tone of his voice was like, ‘Wow, who is this kid?’ And look at him now. He knew, obviously.”
You can listen to Blige speaking about Bobby Shmurda and Drake in the video below.
