Mary Jane Blige is an American R&B, soul, and hip hop soul singer, rapper, songwriter, producer, and actress. She has sold over 50 million records worldwide since her career began in 1991. In that span, she has thirty-one charting hits on the U.S. Pop Charts, forty hits on the R&B Charts, seventeen of which were in the top ten and six which reached number one. She also has nine singles to reach number one on the dance charts, and nine gold and platinum singles worldwide in addition to her seven multi platinum selling albums. She is one of the most accomplished artist of the hip hop generation. She is also widely known as the "Queen of hip-hop soul and R&B." Her works have earned her six Grammy Awards.

Blige was born in Yonkers, a Westchester County suburb of New York City, to a jazz musician father. When she was four, her father, Thomas, left the family, leaving her mother Cora to raise two children by herself. They then moved to neighboring Yonkers where they resided in Schlobaum Housing Projects, one of the city's most dangerous housing projects. She sang lead in her church's choir, and at seven she won a talent contest singing Aretha Franklin's "Respect." On the February 1, 2006 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, she revealed that she was sexually assaulted at age five by a family friend.

In her teen years, Blige began experimenting with recreational drugs and dropped out of high school in eleventh grade. She has two younger brothers, Bruce Miller and Thomas Blige Jr., as well as sisters LaTonya Blige-DaCosta and Jonquell Dillard.

In 2000, Blige began a relationship with record industry executive Martin Kendu Isaacs (known simply as "Kendu"), who is now her manager. Blige has also credited Isaacs for having gotten her to kick her drug & alcohol addiction. The two were married on December 7, 2003.

In 1988, Blige recorded an impromptu cover of Anita Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture" at a recording booth in a local shopping mall. Her mother's boyfriend at the time later played the cassette for Jeff Redd, a recording artist and A&R runner for Uptown Records. Redd then sent it to the president and CEO of the label, Andre Harrell. Harrell met with Blige and, in 1989, she was signed to the label; becoming the company's youngest and first female artist.

Upon signing to Uptown, Blige's early years there were dormant, as the label continued to focus most of its attention on its more established acts. During this time, Blige occasionally did session work as a background singer for her label mates. In 1990, she was introduced as a background singer for Redd, during a performance at the Apollo Theatre. The same year she also sang the hook on "I'll Do 4 U" by rapper and label mate Father MC; Blige also appeared in the concert-themed music video, in the role of a back-up singer.

Blige was featured with Aretha Franklin on the soundtrack to motion picture Bobby. They duet on the lead track Never Gonna Break My Faith, the song was nominated for a Golden Globe, which was lost to Prince for "Happy Feet."

Blige was featured on Ludacris' inspirational song and music video "Runaway Love" bringing awareness to the phenomenon of girls who run away from home because of some form of abuse by men. The song reached the top five on both the Hot 100 and the Hip-Hop/R&B chart.

On December 7, 2006, Blige became the artist with the most Grammy Award nominations for the year, eight, winning three for "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" and "Best R&B Song" for "Be Without You" and "Best R&B Album" for The Breakthrough. On February 11, 2007, Blige completed a season sweep of the "big three" major music awards, having won the American Music Award in November 2006, the Billboard Music Awards in December 2006, and the Grammy Awards in February 2007.

Blige's new album, tentatively titled Growing Pains, is due for release on November 20, 2007.