What's the 411? Remix - Mary J. Blige

Mary J. Blige's debut album is an uneven affair, but amid some of the more pedestrian and formulaic R&B, it contains some sensational urban soul music. Songs such as "Real Love" and "Sweet Thing" heralded the arrival of a true and distinctive talent. As was de rigueur in early-'90s R&B, MCA/Uptown followed up Blige's debut with an identically titled remix album. The idealistic view is that her record company chose to release such an album because it wanted to elevate the less successful moments on her debut to the heights reached by its hits. The cynical view is that the record company wanted to economically (as opposed to artistically) capitalize on the success of the hit singles. Whatever the motivation behind it, What's the 411? Remix plays like a combination of both reasons. What this means is that it's a uneven record, like the album which it attempts to illuminate and recontextualize, maintaining both highlights and low points. It takes the same general thematic form as its predecessor, opening with a series of phone messages that serve to punctuate how many famous friends and admirers Mary J. Blige has, before launching into the remixed versions of her songs. The production credits also punctuate the scope of her admirers. The main change the production work accomplishes is realigning Blige much more firmly with the hip-hop side of her hip-hop/soul blend. Sharp, repetitive beats and rumbling bass roll out and there's the frequent presence of rap stalwarts such as Sean "Puffy" Combs, Craig Mack, Kid Capri, Greg Nice, and Biggie Smalls on various tracks, all of whom either rap or, in Puff Daddy's case, leave fingerprints all over the production (given his fondness for recasting the songs by interspersing unmistakable vintage licks from classic rap songs from the past and present). Sometimes the bevy of different sounds works wonderfully, at least on a song-by-song basis ("Sweet Thang," "Love No Limit," and Puffy and Jesse West's "Reminisce" remix, which sonically references Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth's "T.R.O.Y." and includes a cameo from the latter), improving on the original in the process. On the whole, there is not much on this album that outshines What's the 411?, and the step back into hip-hop doesn't seem to suit Blige as much as it did the first time around. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide