Mary J. Blige just dropped some music industry info about one of the biggest hits she never recorded.
The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul revealed she had first dibs on Rihanna‘s monster hit “Umbrella” but walked away without looking back. Speaking on Carmelo Anthony’s 7PM in Brooklyn podcast, Blige explained exactly why she passed on what became a seven-week number one smash.
The story goes back to 2006, when Blige was riding high off the success of The Breakthrough album. Her single “Be Without You” was dominating charts and she had eight Grammy nominations under her belt.
That’s when producers The-Dream and Tricky Stewart walked into her world with a track that would change everything.
“Dream and Tricky came to me with ‘Umbrella,'” Blige told Anthony during their conversation. “All I heard was [the vocalized refrain] ‘aye, aye,’ and I was like ‘Yo, my fans is gonna bug out on me if they hear me talking about ‘aye aye, aye.'”
The R&B legend trusted her instincts completely. She knew her audience inside and out after years of building that connection through her emotional music.
The catchy hook that would later become iconic just didn’t fit her brand at that moment.
“So I was like, ‘I got a lot going on. So I’m going to pass,'” Blige continued. Her decision came from confidence, not fear. She understood what worked for her sound and what didn’t.
The track eventually landed with Rihanna in 2007 as the lead single from Good Girl Gone Bad. Jay-Z jumped on the remix and the song turned into a global phenomenon.
It spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of Rihanna’s signature records.
But Blige has zero regrets about her choice. When she heard Rihanna’s version hit the airwaves, everything clicked into place for her.
“When I heard Rihanna do it, I was like, ‘See, it was for Rihanna. It wasn’t for me,” she explained. “I’m not afraid to pass on something that’s not for me. It got away, it got away, but it wasn’t for me in the first place.”
The song’s journey to Rihanna wasn’t straightforward either. The-Dream and Tricky Stewart originally wrote “Umbrella” with Britney Spears in mind.
When Spears’ camp declined, they offered it to Blige next. After her pass, the producers found their perfect match in Rihanna.
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