It's not just songs and glamour. It's sweat, blood, broken toes, and mistakes... It's life.
Interpretation
Success in the arts requires hard work and perseverance, not just talent or glamour.
Mary J. Blige emphasizes that the journey in the music industry, and life in general, goes beyond the surface of fame and beauty. It is filled with struggles, challenges, and sacrifices that shape an artist's experience and contribute to their authentic expression. The quote serves as a reminder that true accomplishment often involves overcoming adversity and embracing the imperfections along the way.
In practice
This quote can inspire a young artist to keep pushing through tough times in their music career.
When I was five years old I was molested and just, you know. I remember feeling, literally right before it happened, I just could not believe that this person was going to do this to me. That thing followed me all my life. The shame of thinking my molestation was my fault - it led me to believe I wasn't worth anything.
We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
I don't know. Only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins. It's up to us to choose, whether we win or lose and I choose to win.
As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me - Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
Really, every woman is an example to me, because as women we go through so much pain. We have to live this perfect life when we are messed up inside. We all go through trials and tribulations.
I've been praying to God to show me how to forgive myself. Because... maybe... that's the thing I've been searching for.
I see no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic-strip novel masterpiece.
The thing that most interests me about writing - there are lots of things, but the thing I can't do without - is the hit of happiness a lovely sentence delivers.
When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it.
The artist part of me always wants to be appreciated. I read every review. But I never wanted to seek validation by awards or anything controlled by politics.
I don't have a clear biography of my own that I could recount in an interesting way. I'm made up of the characters that I pulled out of my head, that I invented.
When I first heard the minstrel banjo - I played a gourd first - I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my god. And then I went to Africa, to the Gambia, and studied the akonting, which is an ancestor of the banjo, and just that connection to me was just immense.
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