My first musical love
Thriller, Michael Jackson (1982)
The only real inspiration for true success for Afro-Americans in the Eighties was Janet and Michael Jackson. It seemed like they did everything right, and we loved and respected them. The entire Jackson 5 family gave us goose bumps, made us scream and say, 'My gosh, I wish I could do that one day.' Then Michael's Off the Wall came out and that made us cry, but when he came back with Thriller he put the cherry on all the layers of the cake. You could see how hard he was working, and he looked so good doing it. He was the inspiration for everything.
When I became a singer
Caught up in the rapture, Anita Baker (1986)
I didn't know that I wanted to be a singer until I was doing it professionally. I wanted to do it as a teenager, but didn't believe it would ever happen. This was my favourite song during that time, and I wanted to hear myself singing it on tape because I would always sing it around the house. So I went to the mall one day and recorded it at a karaoke machine. I came home and played it on the stereo, and my stepfather caught me listening to it. He grabbed the tape and said he knew some people in his job that might help me, and the rest is history. I was 17.
When my career took off
Ask Rufus, Rufus and Chaka Khan (1977)
I've lost track of the number of times I have bought this record. Chaka was way before her time, and there's something about her voice I still haven't heard elsewhere. I first met her at the Grammy s , and she was so nice and real and down-to-earth. Vocally, she has been an inspiration to me: she's a beautiful, strong, sexy woman, and she's very smart. She gave me a lot of advice on my personal life , and she's inspired me to be nicer to the younger singers as well, because when you meet a superstar like that you don't want to be turned off. She did not let me down.
The one that made me realise I inspire others
Umbrella, Rihanna (2007)
With young singers I'm always ready to embrace the ones that want to communicate with me, because I don't want people to say, 'Mary's a bitch.' While the new generation aren't as talented as the ones that came before, they do have confidence and courage . As far as courage goes, I'll start with Rihanna. She's a model with presence, and while she's not exactly an opera singer, you've got to be proud of her to have the courage to realise that you don't have to make all those faces into the camera. Beyoncé and Alicia Keys can sing, and they have the whole package.
When I made my new album
Back to black, Amy Winehouse(2006)
I can't even listen to the radio when I'm working on a new album. I take my time and sit down with the producer and tell him what I want, but the producer will have come from working with other artists, so you have to overpower that world so much that it is subliminal. I did a track with Mark Ronson, but it doesn't sound like Amy Winehouse, whom he had just worked with, because I would never disrespect a fellow artist by stealing their thing. Amy is the most talented of the new generation, and it's always the most talented ones who have it rough.
Strange and possibly true
1 Blige grew up in the Schlobohm housing projects in Yonkers, New York . 'Growing up in the projects is like living in a barrel of crabs,' she says. 'If you try to get out, one of the other crabs tries to pull you down.'
2 Early in her career, Blige's shyness made it hard for her to cope with fame. She used drink and drugs and gained a difficult reputation. In 1996, after splitting with on-off boyfriend K-Ci of R&B group Jodeci, she found God and turned her life around .
3 Blige asked Sean 'Puffy' Combs and Mariah Carey to appear in the video for her 2001 single 'No More Drama', believing that they'd had their fair share of drama too.
4 Her wedding to record producer Kendu Isaacs in 2003 was no typical celebrity affair: there were just 50 guests at the ceremony in Bergen County, New Jersey.
5 She will play Nina Simone in a film of the singer's life, due out next year.
·Mary J Blige's new album, Growing Pains, is out now on Universal
