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Mary J. Blige is looking forward to performing at the next Super Bowl, but her focus now is the second season of Power Book II: Ghost, debuting Sunday. The two-time Oscar nominee portrays drug queenpin Monet Tejada. Mary says she knew people similar to Tejada growing up in Yonkers, New York.
“I witnessed them growing up in the inner cities and in the projects because the queenpins were sheros, and still, some of them are my friends to this day,” Mary told Entertainment Tonight.
Blige says Tejada reminds her of the most important woman in her life.
“I look at my mother as kind of…a Monet in that aspect as well, because she was a single parent raising her two children in a rough neighborhood, trying to figure it out by any means necessary,” she explains. “That’s what drew me to the role, just knowing who this woman is.”
The “Queen of Hip Hop Soul” says for the new season of Power Book II: Ghost, her character hopes to escape the street life.
“Monet is really looking for a legit and a safe way to live and protect her children,” she says. “She knows that if she stays in, it’s death or jail, and that’s not what she’s building this empire for. She’s building an empire so it can grow in a more legit way, like a safer way instead of the drug game.”
Mary begins rehearsals for the Super Bowl in January, and although her appearance will be brief, she says it will be special performing with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar.
“That’s the whole world really watching,” she notes. “Just be beautiful and strong and courageous, and give the world what they need with that little bit of time I have.”
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