Love Letters
Featured
“Her pain was my pain, her happiness was my happiness and her life was “My Life.” If this hood girl from Yonkers, Mary Jane Blige, could work through her pain to not only survive but thrive, then so could this little girl from East Flatbush.”
“You, our dear Mary, have continued to welcome us in some small way on your journey and it’s helped us to better navigate our own.”
“You belong to an elite club of sisters with voices who have provided soundtracks for the lives of Black women and girls spanning multiple generations, a list that includes the likes of Bessie, Billie, Nina, Ella, Aretha, Patti and Whitney before you, one that came to welcome the likes of you, Mariah and Toni at the top of the 1990s and would add Beyonce a decade later.”
“You were my therapist, Mary, guiding me to the answers I needed to hear. You are truly a legend. Enjoy your golden year!”
“For me, it feels as though you have always been here, as ubiquitous and permeable as air.”
“You have been my sonic psychologist, my spirit animal, and my soul sister. Like you, I am a work in progress — perfectly imperfect.”
“Thank you for trusting yourself from the very beginning to unapologetically, share your experiences in love, self-love, and transformation in the rawest way.”
“Whether spiritually or physically, Mary reflected all of the women in my world, with her layered persona mirroring a piece of each of them.”
“I didn’t have the words for what I was going through, and as per usual, Mary gave them to me right on time.”
“Because even though Mary is introducing herself — debuting — and announcing that all she really wants is to be happy, Mary is still wary. She doesn’t yet know her journey. Or how her life will be our life.”
“I learned early on that whether you were happy, sad, heartbroken, feeling misunderstood, longing for love or searching for joy, Mary had a song that both spoke to your soul and expressed exactly how you were feeling.”
“Your words, your demand upon the direction of your own course, made me reach for my own freedom.”
“One of the most liberating experiences I have had is when you showed me that it’s more than okay to have people Take Me, As I Am or have nothing at all.”
“Your music was ours, was mine. You sing the poetics of our real Black ass lives. You sing our joys and our pains. And in your voice, there are no lies.”
“It was your voice that our sister Breonna Taylor desired for her first dance as Kenneth’s wife. It was your voice that reigned as our first Black woman vice president worked her victory walk and addressed our country in a year we all needed a bit more of your sweet spirit. Who would we be without you?”
“You allowed girls like me from South Jamaica, Queens, to grow up with you, and evolve from young, broken daughters with zero fucks to give into sophisticated, healed women with zero tolerance for bullshit.”
“The international council of fashion designers should just go ahead and rename the thigh high boot, the Mary.”