From the time she was a little girl listening to her mother s records, Mary J. Blige knew she wanted to be a singer but her family told her it would never happen. Mary found escape from her hard life by singing in the church. As a teen, she made what she considers one of the biggest mistakes in her life she dropped out of high school. Bored with the life of a dropout and determined to start a music career, she made a demo tape at a mall recording studio. The tape eventually made it into the hands of a record executive, who was wowed by her sound. At eighteen, Mary had a recording contract. She paired up with Sean Diddy Combs to produce top albums. By 2007, the R&B powerhouse had produced seven top albums that had sold over 34 million copies worldwide and earned her six Grammy Awards.
