Mary J. Blige — American Musician born on January 11, 1971,

Mary Jane Blige is an American singer, songwriter, model, record producer and actress. Starting her career as a background singer on Uptown Records in 1989, Blige released her first album, What's the 411?, in 1992, and has released 11 studio albums since and made over 150 guest appearances on other albums and soundtracks... (wikipedia)

I know who I am. I am not perfect. I'm not the most beautiful woman in the world. But I'm one of them.
God comes first - if I don't love him, I can't love anybody, and if I can't love me I can't love nobody.
From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business, I couldn't see that.
There's so many things that life is, and no matter how many breakthroughs, trials will exist and we're going to get through it. Just be strong.
You can't get around pain and opposition, but you can try to be joyful in the trial, and thank yourself for the trial, and thank God for the strength to get through it.