Mary J. Blige Thrives With Kaytranada and BADBADNOTGOOD on “Telling the Truth”
There are many gravity-shifting R&B artists who refuse to suture their emotional wounds. What makes Mary J. Blige one of the genre’s most compelling voices is how that hurt is still tender tissue—no calluses are allowed to form. That vulnerability translates into magic that’s appeared throughout her career, though only sporadically over the last decade. It’s at least been a mainstay in her performances: At last year’s Madison Square Garden show co-headlined by Maxwell, there was a sequence where she repeated an improvised line, “He wasn’t worth it,” stumbling backwards and scraping the notes from her throat’s bottom with each recitation. The whole moment felt like less of a recollection than an ongoing voyage. She may be theatrical, but you knew he wasn’t worth it: Very few…
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