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me and mariah go back like…(my review of the emancipation of mimi)

thanksgiving was amazing and awesome and i went horseback riding and gave a little concert with my sister for the family and no murders occurred tho there were guns on some of the horseback rides but not mine cause i generally feel if its your time its your time so blah blah blah. but on the way home my sisters and i got to listen to The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah Carey’s latest offering to the gods of high notes and love songs.

i have to back up here so y’all understand my deep and everlasting love for crazy ass mariah.

my parents saw mariah on arsenio hall and told me about her, and then, then i saw her and I had a vision of love. i bought the TAPE and listened to it over and over on my walkman, i would spend entire nights wearing out batteries listening to her. when she rapped on prisoner of love i was right there with her – ‘maybe you don’t think that i’ll be strong enough but i’m not gonna be a prisoner of yo love no more, no more,’  i was tryin to tap with her on all in your mind.

and someday?? deserves its own paragraph! the most wonderful btft (by teen for teen) two snaps of songwriting. i know i am not alone as a teen girl scorned in love whose only rebuttal is that someday the fool will recognize that you are a mariah carey level individual and come running back, but it will be too late. real life has shown that often, that is not the case. still, the song is a DEEP comfort – somewhere there exists footage of me playing mariah carey in a 7th or 8th grade theater class video reenactment.

from then on, when mariah carey’s new albums dropped, everything would simultaneously drop from my schedule while i listened and learned to sing every song she put out there. i learned to sing from mariah, to strain my voice into multiple octaves. i learned to love my curly hair.

i distinctly remember the first time i heard dreamlover and the boy it brought to mind. i remember rollerskating with my current boyfriend at a high school lock-in to fantasy. folks slept on baby doll, and breakdown was just brilliant. i even went so far as to love the mariah version of the beautiful ones, even though she had crisco-cisco on there as a faux-prince.

mariah went thru some hard times – heartbreak, trynna reclaim her daddy, a total breakdown and suicide attempt and being just plain crazy. i was feelin you mariah! glitter and charmbracelet were just as hard on me, mariah! and yet she kept giving us a taste of what she was capable of – i mean heartbreaker is a classic. both the jay-z and da brat/missy remixes are on my favorites playlist to this day.

a couple of months ago i saw the video for we belong together – it brought tears to my eyes. then shake it off – i was still too broke to make a purchase but i knew something was happening – in the interviews she looked healthy, only slightly off, mariah was back and even had the balls to say ‘don’t call it a comeback’.

and now, with the full hearing of the emanicipation of mimi, i am just so proud of my girl. she is ‘sangin’ again, she got good producers on here, it is a wonderful album. and it’s thematic, the whole thing is about still being caught up on someone who you just wish would come back, not forget you, give you one more chance, when you can’t make it….she does the 8th octave thing…the highlights are so high – your girl, the neptunes productions, the joyride with that insane note near the end??!! the gospel closer?!?! the song that is basically about giving head!? snoop?? TWISTA?!!!

i am back in the audience, lighter all lit and burning my thumb with joy!

thank you mariah, thank you for writing your own proclamation 🙂

now give us us go’ment cheese!!