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Image Courtesy Capitol RecordsMary J. Blige hit number one on the Billboard R&B chart for the first time in six years with her latest album, The London Sessions, and the success reflects a new attitude.
“I feel like I have a new confidence when it comes to life.” she tells Billboard. “When it comes to who Mary J. Blige is, period. So that makes everything better. That makes my music different, that makes my music better, that makes my life different, that makes my life better.”
The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul stars in The London Sessions documentary that premiered Thursday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. She loves how the film provides a very personal connection with her fans.
“It was important to me that my fans know how and why, and see the process of it,” she says. “For the last 15 to 20 years, they’ve been with me on a journey, and they know what we’re gonna do, and they always know, but this is something completely different that I’ve done. I needed to them to be enlightened as to why.”
After releasing eight consecutive platinum albums, sales dropped with each of her last five albums, so she knew she needed to jump start her career.
“That moment came when I realized that as an artist, I needed to do something creatively different and no longer do the same thing,” she confesses. “To me, everything was stagnant and redundant — the same thing. I said, ‘I hope they appreciate this, but I think they will because it’s a move that they don’t even know they need.’ I needed to take this chance and do this for myself, because I just couldn’t be stuck anymore.”
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