BY Michael Partis
Mary on her relationship with Oprah
“’Oprah was like, ‘I didn’t care for you, but it was when I got to know you that I realized who you were.’ Though Oprah is now a friend, Mary is not surprised at her opinion. ‘I understand somebody like her wouldn’t even feel me at all.’ Mary says. ‘I’m a nigga, you know what I’m sayin? So when she said that to me, I was like, ‘Thank you for that honesty.’”
Mary J. Blige
No Shame
VIBE February 2008
Mary J. Blige has always been known for her sincerity. Through her lyrics, words, and voice, she has made songs, interviews, and powerful vocal performances convey the Mary J. Blige Experience; an experience that has taken listeners and observers through a odyssey of pain, joy, tears, Real Love, life, No More Drama, Yonkers, hip-hop soul, ghetto fabulous, happiness, and everything else that makes her Mary. It is a life no one could fake, and has a part everyone within the Hip-Hop nation could relate to. That is why for over the past fifteen years, Mary has and continues to serve as a symbol of the Black female experience.
Mary’s symbol status is indicative of the consciousness of our post-Civil Rights and post-crack era generation. The socio-economical problems of our inner-cities were communicated through the medium of Hip-Hop music. It was a medium that elders, like C. Dolores Tucker and Calvin Butts, did not understand. The elders and the critics knew that the destructive violence expressed in Black-on-Black crime, or derogatory treatment of women and blatant sexism was wrong. But they didn’t understand why there were “Niggas With Attitudes;” or why they lived a “T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E;” or why “cash ruled everything around me.” They did not know why it was on the young people’s minds, and they did not know why they had to communicate it with rage, anger, pain, and vulgarity.
So it only makes sense that the greatest symbol of Black upward mobility and financial success over the past twenty-five didn’t understand Mary J. Blige. It’s only logical that even though they shared the same condition of being a successful Black woman in American society, Oprah Winfrey just didn’t “care” for MJB.
But what do a whole generation of young people of color who were not recognized by their elders, not respected by their elders, and not “cared” for by their elders see themselves as???”
They see themselves as “niggas”. And it is within this context that the word “nigga” has developed over the past twenty-five years.
A generation of young people (with African Diasporic lineage) that were marginalized and neglected developed their own voices and conveyed their own lived experience through Hip-Hop music and culture. They constructed their identity and developed an understanding of themselves and others through a self-appropriation of the word “nigger.” This successful (or attempted, depending on your opinion) self-appropriation of the word makes “nigger” transform into the vernacular “nigga.” You can only become the reflexive, communally-accepted “my nigga” if you show some understanding, comprehension, or connection with the post-Civil Rights Movement, post-Crack Era inner-city lived experience of those from the African Disaporic community. If you can’t connect, then you become the general, impersonal “that nigga” or “them niggas.”
Are there more usages than what I just gave above: absolutely. Is there tremendously more complexity in how the word is used than I explained above: absolutely. But do a large number of youth within the Hip-Hop culture use “nigga” within the context I stated above as a reference to their identity: absolutely.
This is why Mary J. Blige can understand why Oprah did not like at first; there is a whole generation of people who are Oprah’s contemporaries and in her cohort who don’t “care” for “niggas” either.
So if one of the most famous and successful Black artists of the past fifteen years sees herself as a “nigga,” there’s a whole generation seeing themselves the same way.
What are the consequences of this? And what are the consequences for what is becoming now a second generation of young people who construct their identity as “niggas?”
In his 1998 book “Yo’ Mama’s DisFUNKtional!: Fighting the Cultural Wars in Urban America” Robin D.G. Kelley takes social scientists and other academics and researchers to task for their singular, archetypal, stereotypical approach to looking at African Americans in urban environment in a chapter he called “Looking for the ‘real’ Nigga.” Hopefully the generation of C. Dolores Tucker’s, Calvin Butts’, and Oprah Winfrey’s who didn’t “care” much about young “niggas” before can rid themselves of the thinking Kelley talks about. And then they and the generation of Mary J. Blige (who grew up thinking of themselves as “niggas”), can come together to see how the poverty, sexism, racism, prison industrial complex, police brutality, and inequality in the American justice system that still plagues people of color in today society is making new “niggas” everyday.
Maybe then people would finally see that Hip-Hop didn’t create these problems. And Hip-Hop is certainly not creating these “niggas.”
Michael Partis
michaelpartis@gmail.com
myspace.com/hiphopthought
http://michaelpartis.blogspot.com/
http://my.rawkus.com/profile/ForeThought
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Editorial, Mary J Blige.
Suggestion Box
February 28th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Yeahh I’m First What Do I Win?
(Fck Everybody Who Enjoys Bein’ First)
And Haha Mary J. Is RIGHT!
February 28th, 2008 at 7:59 am
great artical… my thought is that is it really worth the division between these people over a word????
February 28th, 2008 at 8:16 am
its almost as if nigga means a poor worthless black person, but when u become a rich successful black person your no longer a nigga, nigga is a worthless state of mind.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:01 am
number 3 your wrong…no matter how rich or afluent you get your still one step away from bein a nigga…look at micheal vick for example…im a nigga and im always gonna be a nigga…it doesnt say anythin about my education or anythin…its a term of brotherhood and i identify wit niggas…im not white and i dont quite understand how non niggas operate…pass me the weed and i can identify…its sad but its the truth..if any other race other than black people were put in our place in history they would be extinct right now…niggas cope..niggas survive…non niggas jus live and let shit happen to them
February 28th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Mary might be right, but to be fair…it’s known throughout the industry that she has a bad attitude. Obviously, that can turn ppul off as well.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am
thanks fif when he says oprah is a 60 yo white lady everybody jumps on his neck when mary says everybody goes hmmmmmm.
February 28th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
LOL @ Mary! i love mary & her thick ass but her callin herself a nigga means Oprah white?
white folks call oprah a rich nigger!
February 28th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I feel that although Hip Hop did not create Nigga it’s definately not doing anything to slow “nigga” down. I love hip hop music….but i love it the way i would love my mom if she were a crack head…you love her to death, and you try to help her but you tell her some shit is unaceptable and embarassing. You have to realize that hearing music that is focusing on materialsim and sexism is going to breed niggas. Nas making an album called Nigger (because im sure righteous nas didn’t name it this to sell more records) is going to breed more niggas.
February 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
“For That Paper Look How Low We’ll Stoop; Even If You In A Benz, You Still A “NIGGA” In A Coupe…” kanYe West
It’s about time, “Black america” started taking accountability for the word “NIGGA.” For some its a term of endearment, for others its an insult, but ultimately we should be ashamed of the word.
To understand the realness of this word everyone should read; “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” if your not ashamed of the word after reading that book. Feel free to call yourself a NIGGER because that is what you will be.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Nas - NIGGER…….april 22nd
now you see why
February 28th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Oprah doesnt have to like someone just because they are black. If she didnt “care” for MJB then that’s her damn business. People need to get off Oprah’s dick and go read a book. People are usually remembered for their first impressions and maybe Mary didnt make a good one. But eventually Oprah came around and Im glad that two of the baddest bitches in their respective games are friends.
And the only black people who consider or call themselves “niggas” ARE typically of the lower socio-economic ladder; not necessarily financially (50 Cent, Nas, ball players all probably call themselves niggas). But the more intellectual and sophisticated blacks don’t say it. You ever hear Cornell West or Michael Eric Dyson call themselves niggas? You think Barack Obama will identify himself as a nigga? And then you “niggas” will say that these people are bourgeois but in reality they know the real connotation of the word People who know better usually DO better.
February 28th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
its a shame that mary j. blige is more of a man than 50cent is.
mary can take those comments on the chin, understand who sayin this. 50 bitches and cries and makes a bigg fuss cuz oprah dont wanna fuck wit him. be a man nigga, if she dont fuck wit u, than dont fuck wit her. but in classic 50 fashion he gotta rant and rave, but kanye is the bitch right.
mary j. is the definition of hood, strong black woman, even oprah cant knock her down
February 28th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
#11..smh
the thing is..Oprah dislike someone before even getting to know them…no what kind of strong black figure does that?
February 28th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
“two of the baddest bitches”-T Cup on OPRAH AND MJB
*smh*
February 28th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
hmm…
~A.V.A.T.A.R. de DymondKrook~
A.K. all day…
i’ve Aquired de Knowledge…
but true wisdom’s hard 2 find…
n dis world of ignorant shit…
20/20 vision n de land of de blind…
February 28th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
That’s why I have loved Mary for more than half my life. When she first dropped I was like 13 and I could immediately identify with her as being a hood chick. She wasn’t Whitney or Anita, who I liked, but were totally unrelatable. She was hip hop and r&b. She’s real, good behavior or bad.
Who’s really surprised that someone 50+ doesn’t identify with her? I heard all the negative shit from my mom and aunts about how untalented and ghetto she was. But like the article said, it’s a generational thing.