Book on Blige decades in the making

Music writer explores female hip-hop star’s artistry

Danny Alexander has been writing about music for decades for various print and online media. He spent three years exploring the music of one of his favorite artists, Mary J. Blige.

In March, the University of Texas Press published the Kansas City writer’s book, “Real Love, No Drama: The Music of Mary J. Blige,” which covers the arc of her 25year music career. Alexander spoke to The Star recently about Blige, her stature in music and what he learned from this project.

Q. What prompted you to write this book?

A. I wanted to write about women in the past quarter century, and no one really compares to Mary J. Blige in terms of the depth, stature and complexity and evolution, the maturity and substance.

Women in general and black artists very often aren’t talked about as artists. Some white men are analyzed to death. Everything they do is an artistic statement. I wanted to write about her as an artist.

Q. When and how did you become interested in her music?

A. My first reaction to her wasn’t really positive. I was into the wave of music she was part of, that whole steady growth of women singers who seemed to come in the wake of Janet Jackson’s “Control,” black women mixing hip-hop and soul and R&B in the late ’80s and early ’90s who took a larger role on the radio than before. I was really into that: Salt-N-Pepa, TLC, Jody Watley, Pebbles and others.

Q. What changed your mind?

A. I didn’t really get into it at all until “My Life” (1994). What really caught me was that Rose Royce cover, “I’m Goin’ Down,” which was really moving and powerful and hit me like great soul music.

When she broke away from Puff Daddy and made “Share My World,” I was surprised how powerful and ambitious it was. From then on, I thought she’d grown into the role she was supposed to be playing.

Q. What is her place in music today?

A. I think of her in terms of a certain movement I think is important in terms of pop music history: the late ’80s to early ’90s, when women were like 25% of the hit singles. It’s never been that high again.

She is sort of the survivor of that group. There is also Mariah Carey. But people look at them differently. Mary is now someone people perceive as having substance.

Q. What did you discover or learn from writing your book?

A. It took about three years of my life, not counting the 20 I spent listening to her music.

When you embark on something like that, it’s kind of a gamble. I was really happy I liked her more at the end of it than when I started. I liked her enough to say that I thought she was one of the most important figures in music over the past 25 years, but by the end of it, I really saw her as peerless and admired on all sorts of levels.