{"id":42035,"date":"2010-07-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/whats-the-411\/"},"modified":"2010-07-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-05T00:00:00","slug":"whats-the-411","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/whats-the-411\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s The 411?"},"content":{"rendered":"

R&B superstar Mary J. Blige\u2019s story is the stuff dreams are made of. As an aspiring singer at the dawn of a new decade, the-then seventeen year old cut a cover of Anita Baker\u2019s hit single \u201cCaught Up In The Rapture\u201d at a local mall. Through a family friend, the track made its way to Uptown record\u2019s boss Andre Harrell, and in a very short time, Blige had not only become the label\u2019s prodigy, she was already working with Puff Daddy on tracks that would make up her debut album What\u2019s The 411?<\/i>, released in mid-\u201992.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Blige\u2019s youth was betrayed by her singing voice, which displayed a maturity and a rawness that saw critics comparing her to everyone from her immediate contemporaries to even the legend herself, Aretha Franklin. With Puff Daddy producing the bulk of the disc, the only challenge was to select material that would showcase Blige\u2019s raw talent in a positive light. Where the industry moguls of today would try and pretty her image up and force her to record sappy, \u201cuplifting\u201d songs, Uptown showed a great deal of courage in letting Blige do her own thing, taking as many risks as the young artist herself. The title of this record derived from Blige\u2019s job as a 4-1-1 operator, but the title track has nothing to do with offering assistance of any kind; instead, it finds her rapping sweet nothings with Grand Puba over a bass-driven track.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cLeave A Message\u201d is similar in style, as Blige\u2019s answering service is kept busy by a series of messages from folks calling for no particular reason at all \u2013 no wonder she never picks up.\u00a0 \u201cReminisce\u201d is a slick, Whitney-esque <\/i>R&B track that gives Blige a chance to prove she can sing just as well as rap. \u201cReal Love\u201d is another upbeat love song that the young Blige revels in singing; it still gets a rousing response when she dusts it off during gigs.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

This album was so influential upon its release that it was responsible for officially creating a new genre, Hip Hop Soul. This was due to Blige\u2019s knack for singing over hip-hop style beats that would normally accompany rapping rather than singing. A perfect example of this is my favorite track on the album, \u201cYou Remind Me.\u201d \u201cSweet Thing\u201d is probably the most \u201cpop\u201d of all the songs on offer here. It\u2019s another love song and Blige softens her tone a little to keep everything sweet.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cLove No Limit\u201d and \u201cMy Love\u201d both add to the overall theme of the album: Mary J. searching for new loves while lamenting the past ones. Cedric Hailey pops up to join Mary for a slick duet on \u201cI Don\u2019t Want To Do Anything,\u201d and it\u2019s another highlight on this brilliant album, as is the autobiographical \u201cChanges I\u2019ve Been Going Through.\u201d\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

All in all, What\u2019s The 411?<\/i> remains a landmark album and one of the great R&B records of the \u201890s. Blige has gone on to become not only a stellar performer but a talented writer and a great singer. She really is the whole package, and has been responsible for influencing almost every up-and-coming R&B artist out there today. This is where it all started.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7598],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-42035","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mary-j-blige","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42035"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}