Without a shadow of a doubt, Mary J Blige has delivered her best work so far in The Breakthrough. They say experience makes for a stronger person, just like it has been sang before “Love will save the Day,” in Mary’s case love has made her an even stronger force to be reckoned with in the world of hip-hop/soul and R & B.
Undoubtedly her soul searching and the re-evaluation we have all been allowed to experience with the Bronx born, Yonkers raised Mary has finally brought her and us as listeners, to a tumultuous crescendo in finding the one thing she searched long and hard for; a man to respect and love her for being her. It is obvious from this collection of tracks that Mary J Blige has found her soul mate at last.
The album boasts collaborations with the best of hip-hop, Jay-Z and hip-pop, Will I Am from the Black Eyed peas, rocks contribution coming from Bono and one of the most colorful personalities in jazz, Ms Nina Simone. These appearances along with input from Brook and the soulful Raphael Saadiq are enough to make a person want to put the CD into their player without any deliberation.
Mary hits the highest of heights and of notes in the collabo with Jay-Z, Can’t Hide From Love, a sure hit which makes you sit back and appreciate just how far Mary has come from the pain and heartache she exposed us to in her earlier projects.
AD LOADING...
But even though she takes us on her new journey, Mary fails to forget the women and the men that have continued to look to her for solace in understanding the trials and tribulations, the ones whose hearts she captured and has maintained throughout her fourteen year career. Good Woman Down cries out to these women and in lines like “My troubled sisters, this is my gift to you,” she still maintains the fans she started out appealing to when she asked What’s the 411?
The lead off single Be Without You secured crazy radio spins and the video remains in constant rotation on MTV and BET and was just a taster of what caliber of project Mary had in store for us. But one of the most interesting tracks on the album has to be her singing over the Cool and Dre beat, which featured on The Games Documentary album, Hate it or Love It. It even astounded the producers to hear precisely what Mary did with the beat and the 50 Cent hook.
It is very rare when listening to today’s Hip-Hop and R & B fields you fail to notice the production; as more often than not the album and the artists depend upon production to appeal to Neilsen’s Soundscan, but on this project the music is most definitely secondary to Mary’s vocals and her lyrics. Of course Rodney Jerkins never fails to let us know that he has a credit on a project when he adds his Darkchild trade mark to the beginning of the track. You would think with his years in the game and his resume, the days of self promotion over a beat would be a thing of the past but apparently not. But if this is the only obvious negative on The Breakthrough, then Mary has once again exceeded herself in her reaffirmation of being the Queen of Hip-Hop/Soul.
