Essay On Mary Blige

Mary J. Blige – The Magic of Share My World

Every explorer names his island Formosa, beautiful. To him it is beautiful because, being first, he has access to it and can see it for what it is. But to no one else is it ever as beautiful- except the rare man who manages to recover it, who knows that it has to be recovered.

-Walker Percy, The Loss of the Creature

An island. Hmmm, my island. My island on which I will do nothing but sit and admire the beauty and serenity of nature at work around me. A catch. One disc. One piece of music so wonderful, so captivating, that I will listen to it for hours upon end. My disc will signify life- and love. It will be a window to the complex world of who I am. To me it will represent who, and what, I have left behind: the things which I value and care deeply about. In my life, that it is love. Above all else, love is what makes my world go 'round. Joy, anticipation, excitement, longing, sadness, and pain: I want to be able to experience these essential feelings until the day I die. Hardships and bliss alike.

It sounds impossible, I know. But there is a disc. There is an artist who captures all of this and a little more in her music. Should I be left on a desert island, Mary J. Blige and her album Share My World

Blige it was never easy. From the beginning, life just seemed to bring her down. Born and raised in the projects of Yonkers, New York, the odds were against this talented "diva-with-an-attitude." From the debut of her first smash hit What's the 411? in 1992, Mary "earned her rep for her edge, her streetiness, her willingness to keep it real" (Farley 70). Mary's love for song evolved through her interaction with the church as well as her unabashed love for the "soul" music she grew up on. She says of the comfort she finds in "old school" music, "when I was younger, my father had like every record in the world, and just to go back and hear those songs again, it did something to me" (Whetstone