Niggas love Mary J. Blige…but why?

As of late I’ve been on this crazy Mary J. Blige kick. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been down with Mary since way back in the day. I remember in 1994, after having decided to “stop going to college,” and landing my first post-collegiate job, teaching an after school computer class at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, and rocking out to “Happy” with my bad-ass kids.

Well, here I am some 12 years later and Mary J. Blige’s songs still move me. I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly what it is about Mary J. that I love so goddamn much. In nearly all of her songs she gets to a point where she pretty much just stops singing and commences to hollering at a motherfucker. I’ve often likened her to a modern-day Patsy Cline: a woman you know sings from the heart. You listen to her lyrics and you can’t help but think, “This shit is not fiction. Some nigga actually did this shit to baby.”

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All the time that I was loving you, you were busy loving yourself…
Eleven years out of my life, besides the kids I have nothing to show...
I should have left your ass a long time ago...
I’m not gonna cry…cause you’re not worth my tears…

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Of course, I can relate to her songs. Albeit, from the wrong side of the diatribe. In other words, like the men in Mary J.’s songs, I’ve done plenty of women wrong. Which begs the question, if those “talks” were so painful, then why would I want to subject myself to more of it by listening to an angry woman sing about it? I called my girl Nisa to see what she thought about it. Among many things, Nisa is a dedicated scholar in the ways of the “niggerish.”

“I don’t know what it is about black men that makes ya’ll like Mary J. Blige so much. If you diss Mary J., brothers will literally try to fight you over it. She’s a little too ghetto for me and someone needs to help her figure out how to dress. But I have a business call to take.”

That’s how Nisa is, she’ll give you a taste, but she’s always in demand. But I digress.

I came to the realization that a man’s love of Mary J. comes down to the guilt that we feel about doing women wrong. Just because, in the words of my older sister Caron, “niggas ain’t shit,” that doesn’t mean that we’re without feeling. You see, when you break a woman’s heart, many of us want to have our guilt assuaged by seeing that the woman has emerged “on the other side” if not well, even stronger for the experience. Yeah, I know, it’s kind of shitty. But to scandalous niggas everywhere, Mary J. Blige represents one simple thing, “It’s ok that you broke my heart cause I’m better for it…you piece of shit.”