![listen to mary j blige share my world album listen to mary j blige share my world album](http://res.cloudinary.com/ybmedia/image/upload/c_crop,h_1324,w_2000,x_0,y_0/c_scale,f_auto,q_auto,w_700/v1/m/9/6/96e80b1d42658488874a3df76c44708186ce95bd/share-my-world-mary-j-blige.jpg)
Between Aretha and Lauryn and the sister who knocked on the door and just by being sincere convinced Mary she'd had Mary's man's baby, all that she can say is that she's ready to love someone serious and walk away from anyone who isn't. Rather than hating playas, she's bored with them. And to go out she covers Aretha's "Day Dreaming," which made clear long ago just how street soul sisters on both sides of the monitors really want to be. If her raucous tone and sour pitch aren't deliberate, they aren't unwitting either-she believes, correctly, that her fans will relish them as tokens of honesty. Because she cultivates youth-center loose rather than arena big, Blige's de facto best-of is more than an enlargement. If "street" seems fake and "real" stupid, try an older cliché: "down-to-earth," a corny compliment no one in the '90s earns more completely. And she's taken two straight follow-ups to the next level. She redefines the New York accent for the '90s. Too strong to talk dirty, she leaves not the slightest doubt of her sexual prowess. As befits her hip hop ethos, she's never soft if often vulnerable, and as befits her hip hop aesthetic, she plays her natural vocal cadences for melodic signature and sometimes hook. Her song sense rooted in slow jams not soul, her soul rooted in radio not the church, Blige is a diva for her own time. Real is not enough, but attached to the right voice it's something to build on ("Sweet Thing," "Real Love") *Īn around-the-way girl's recipe for happiness ("Mary Jane," "I'm Goin' Down") ***