Product Description

The opening track 'Leave A Message' is an immediately intriguing hook for the listener. A series of answering machine messages over a funky drum beat does not fail, even though most callers insist on saying 'peace' instead of 'goodbye' at the end of every call. The artist first appears on track two, and stays in control throughout an album of high-quality urban R&B/soul. Highly commercial, yet it never sinks to the blandness of some other 90s female pop acts. Tracks such as 'Real Love' lend more to the best of Aretha Franklin pop flirtations than to 90s R&B. Blige is Aretha's heir apparent.

Track Listing

1. Leave A Message
2. Reminisce
3. Real Love
4. You Remind Me
5. Intro Talk
6. Sweet Thing
7. Love No Limit
8. I Don't Want To Do Anything
9. Slow Down
10. My Love
11. Changes I've Been Going Through
12. What's The 411?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38076 in Music
• Released on: 1999-03-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 52 minutes

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
Wow, I purchased this album back in 1993 and I still listen to it, that in itself is enough to justify the worth of this album. Mary J's debut album and it is very very good. Maybe it is outdated now - but it still sounds amazing.

Landmark Album
This is one of those albums that anyone RnB fan has to own. Then it's also an album that any music fan should own too. Why? Well this is one of those landmark albums that set the benchmark for so many of today's artists. Debut album on the, then hot, Uptown Records, A&R Sean (Puffy)Combs, original, and most imporatntly outstanding quality. This album shows the world one of the best female vocalists, right at the start of her career. Fresh and soulful, "What's the 411" was an outstanding album then, and now serves as a reminder of where today's RnB came from, minus the "pop" edge.

Love no limit being, for me the best song on the album. Real Love was the jewel in the crown for most, and still today is seen as one of the breakthrough RnB songs of the 90's.

I am just glad I was around when this album was released and managed to enjoy it whilst it was contempary.

If you like RnB or you like female vocals - then this album is a must.

The One That Started it All
This is the debut album from Mary J. Blige. In 1992, when New Jack Swing swung out of popularity, a new brand of r&b started to gain momentum. Blige was probably the first artist who introduced the genre that would later be known as hip hop soul. "What's the 411" is a solid collection of grooves with spark and attitude. The singles "Real Love," "Reminisce," and "You Remind Me" all sound as fresh as they did a decade ago and are great slices of well-crafted mid-tempo r&b. Her cover of Chaka's "Sweet Thing" has listeners divided. Some people like it, while others cringed at the thought of an upstart covering material from a diva so widely revered. But Blige's version of the song did work, as her bruised voice gave it the unfiltered emotion the lyrics demand. This wasn't Blige's best album, but "What's the 411" would be the beginning of a bright career for the artist we would later hail as the Queen of Hip Hop Soul.