Mary J. Blige is happy. Is that a good thing?

Aug. 18--Mary J. Blige is on the phone, reiterating that she's happy. She says she's found a good man (producer Kendu Isaacs), she's rediscovered her faith in God, and she's cut out booze and drugs.

There's only one problem: This can't possibly be good news for fans of her music, can it?

Blige laughs. When she was struggling personally, Blige was making some of the most caustic, transcendent R&B of the '90s. Her pain was fuel. Her lifetime of abusive relationships, her bouts with drugs, drink and depression -- she poured it all out in song. Now that Blige, 35, is in a better place spiritually, some of her fans openly wondered whether she could keep delivering the goods musically.

"Sometimes you have to take a chance on losing the money people, even the fans," she says. "Because you need to make yourself happy, no matter what it takes. You have to decide, what do you want to be? Your life will be hell if you listen to what other people want from you. I got to the lowest point where I realized, 'I'm miserable, so what is it I want to do?' Once I realized that and took control of my life, my life changed. There were people still creeping around, saying, 'She's really doing this God thing, and can she really be happy doing this, and will she ever make another good album?' And I lost some of those people along the way. But I had to do this for me."

Vindication arrived last December, when her seventh album, "The Breakthrough" (Geffen), sold more than 700,000 copies in its first week on the charts. Sales have been steady ever since, and it's become one of the commercial and critical triumphs of her 14-year career.

"It feels good to be able to do what's right in my heart and have the fans say, 'That's right, that's our Mary right there!'" she says.

That's not to say that "The Breakthrough" is a candy-coated affirmation of faith, love and her wardrobe. On the contrary, it's rife with the soul-searching that has always underpinned Blige's best music. On "Baggage," she acknowledges that she hasn't completely let go of her past as she enters into a new relationship, and "Father in You" reveals that her needs as a wife are driven by what she was denied as a child.

"That's basically a letter to my husband, an explanation of why things between us can be messed up sometimes," she says of the latter song. "Women and men go through conflict, even if they're in love with each other. I can't share everything, but the things I do share I feel are things that everyone can relate to."

Her ability to make the personal universal distinguishes Blige from many of her peers. That, and her voice, which can be a thing of beauty one minute, cracked and broken the next, as if she were breaking off pieces of her heart with each note.

"The lyrical content wakes up every emotion, based on past events," she says. "I can't sing like I sing without believing every word. Otherwise, it would be impossible to go out there every night and put myself through that. I'm carrying [emotional] baggage around because I don't want to forget what I had to get through to be where I'm at now."

One of those hard lessons came recently. On her 2003 album, "Love and Life," she reunited with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, the producer who established her sound in the early '90s by wedding her fierce vocals with hip-hop beats. The attempt to revisit her past turned out to be the first artistic misstep of her career. The number of thin songs that showed up on the album suggested the partnership ran its course before the recording sessions did.

Blige regrets the way it all went down.

"It taught me a lesson: Never go against what I know," she says. "It was told to me that this was going to be the hottest thing. But what's the true thing? When [Combs] gets involved, he takes control. I tried to let him do his job, and later I realized I can't just let people take over my music. I walked out because there were too many cooks making that album. But I should have stayed and stood my ground."

Blige was on surer footing with "The Breakthrough." Once again, she personalizes every song, even U2's monster hit "One." She says she hadn't heard the song until a record company executive played it for her last year.

"I lost my mind," she says. "When he sings, 'Did I disappoint you? Or leave a bad taste in your mouth? You act like you never had love, and you want me to go without,' that really hit home. So many people don't want to see you happy. Then something bad happens, from Katrina to 9-11, and we suddenly realize that we really do need each other. It's always me, me, me, but sometimes we need to realize that it's about more than us as individuals. So many people out there need that kind of food, and I need it too."

Mary J. Blige

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Charter One Pavilion, 1300 S. Lynn White Drive

Price: $55, $71, $81; 312-559-1212

gregkot@aol.com

Greg Kot co-hosts "Sound Opinions" at 7 p.m. Saturdays on WBEZ-FM 91.5.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

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