Mary J. Blige – Family Affair

“Family Affair” is a song by American singer Mary J. Blige. It was written by Blige, her brother Bruce Miller, Camara Kambon, Michael Elizondo, and Dr. Dre for her fifth studio album, No More Drama (2001), while production was overseen by the latter.

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Mary J. Blige - Family Affair

Mary J. Blige - Family Affair (Official Music Video)03:45

The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks starting from November 3, 2001, becoming Blige’s first and only Hot 100 number-one single as well as her first top-10 single in five years. It was the 12th-biggest song of the 2000s decade in the US and the 99th-biggest song of all-time in the country as of 2018. Rolling Stone ranked it number 95 on their list of 100 Best Songs of the 2000s decade. Outside the United States, the song reached number one in France and the top 10 in 14 additional countries across Europe and Oceania, peaking at number two on the Eurochart Hot 100.

“Family Affair” was written by Mary J. Blige, her brother Bruce Miller, Camara Kambon, Mike Elizondo, and Dr. Dre.[5] Production was helmed by the latter. Dre created an initial version of the musical portion of “Family Affair” in studio on September 13, 2000, using a bass player and a keyboard player.[6] His studio engineers entitled this version of the song “Fragile” for record-keeping purposes.[6] Near the end of 2000, he sent Blige the instrumental track.

Blige recorded vocals over the music based on lyrics penned by Miller, Kambon and Elizondo.[6] Several weeks later, on January 10, 2001, a near-final but non-lyrical portion of “Fragile” was transferred from digital to analog format and renamed “Family Affair”. In late May or early June 2001, at Dr. Dre’s suggestion, Blige added a bridge to the song, for which she alone crafted the lyrics.[6] A remix featuring rappers Jadakiss and Fabolous appears on the US CD single.

The title never appears in the lyric – you know it by the opening chorus lines:

Let’s get it crunk, we gon’ have fun
Up on up in this dancerie

That and the line, “Mary J. is in the spot tonight.”

Mary J. Blige’s mentor, Sean Combs, referred to his crew as “The Family,” and using such a benign title helped earn the song airplay on adult-skewing radio stations that might balk at a song about getting crunk on the dance floor. That title is also a proven winner from a previous generation: Sly & the Family Stone had a #1 hit in 1971 with their “Family Affair.”Dr. Dre produced this track. In the ’90s, he was known as the architect of G-Funk, but in 2001, he proved he could do dance music as well. That year, he also worked on “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” by Eve.

Dre worked remotely with Blige because at the time he was busy filming the movie Training Day.

Blige sang “Family Affair” at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2022, where Dr. Dre also performed. She then went into another one of her big hits, “No More Drama.”

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