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Tavis: I am pleased welcome R&B superstar, the queen of hip-hop soul, Mary J. Blige to this program. The three time Grammy winner is out next month with her latest CD called "The Breakthrough.' You can't buy it until December the 20th, but I've got one here in my hands. And last night on the Vibe Awards, Quincy Jones, 'The Q,' presented her with Vibe's Legend Award. Not bad for someone so young. You legend, you, Mary J. Nice to see you.

Mary J. Blige: It's good to see you, too, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you here.

Blige: I'm glad to be here.

Tavis: Congrats on that. Does that make you feel old or does it make you feel real special that you're a legend already?

Blige: It makes me feel really special. Because I guess it's a symbolization of the fact that I put in so much work. You know, from a young age, I had no idea what I was doing up until maybe '97, you know? And now I'm really understanding what it is. And I just laid down the groundwork for what is now, you know. Hip-hop and R&B is what every female is doing, every guy is doing. So, you know, it just lets me know that they recognize me and my work.

Tavis: I'm glad that I'm sitting down. Because I would have been knocked off my feet had I heard you say to me that it was only in 1997 that you figured out what you were doing. You were making hits before 1997. What had you not figured out by 1997?

Blige: Well, I didn't have an idea, you know, based on my mentality. My mentality was, I just want to sing. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just a child from the ghetto, and I don't get it. So I was just in it. And that's the part that released me, singing released me. And I was having fun. I had no idea that I was making history, you know?

And no one was telling me that I was making history. We were just laughing and having fun and celebrating. And I was just celebrating the fact that my mother was going to be able to get out of the ghetto, you know?

Tavis: In Yonkers.

Blige: Exactly. So I didn't know. But I know now. I look now, and I'm like, wow, this is what I've birthed, this is what I've done.

Tavis: I just said to somebody the other day, Mary, that old adage that you know my glory, but you don't know my story. Take me back to Yonkers. 'Cause it's easy now to celebrate you as the queen of hip-hop soul. But I know that's a long way from Yonkers.

Blige: Right.

Tavis: What was it like?

Blige: Yonkers, I mean, growing up in the projects, it's called Schroeder Street, but the slang name for it was called Slow Bomb. And literally that's what it was, a slow bomb. It was like being in jail. You have everybody just fighting over, you know, whose - just fighting over nothing, you know. Just a place where no one wanted anybody to get ahead. But nobody knew why. Everyone was angry, but nobody knew why. Everyone was insecure, but no one knew why.

But today I understand why everyone was like that. It was because of the environment. How could you become anything different if you were around everything negative? How could you become so positive if everything around you was negative? If everything around you was alcohol, how could you avoid alcoholism? If everything around you is drugs, how can you avoid drugs?

You understand? So, that's basically what it was. It was like a prison inside a prison, you know, in your head, outside. You were afraid all of the time, you know. We were children going trick-or-treating getting robbed, at like seven years old, you know. Getting our bags snatched. Getting whatever kind of little...

Tavis: Somebody snatched your bag of candy?

Blige: Absolutely.

Tavis: That's wrong.

Blige: Grown men.

Tavis: They're going straight to hell for that. Snatching the kids' bag of candy. Wow, man.

Blige: Grown men, Tavis. Just standing on the corners waiting for us to come out of the building so they can get us. And that's, you know, that's where we grew up. So, you know, getting in the music business with the same mentality, it's like another prison, you know? Because it's the same thing. Everybody's fighting over the same thing, you know, over nothing, basically.

Tavis: People still trying to steal your bag of candy in the music business.

Blige: They're still trying to snatch my bag. (laughs)

Tavis: (laughs) Even in the music business. One of the things that I think people love about you, I certainly do, and celebrate about you, is that it is a wonderful thing of beauty to see someone grow, not just go, but grow. We see you go, but also - we've watched you grow through this. And you have been very open about talking about how you got beyond that alcohol, beyond the drugs. Tell me how you navigated your way through that. And why you sit here so triumphant now.

Blige: I believe things happen for a reason, you know. And I had like friends that were dying. Like I had a girlfriend that died August 25th, the year right before Liyah died, I had a girlfriend that died the same year. And I was spinning in alcohol and drugs, and I was on tour and, you know, I was just a mess. And when she dies, it kind like really, really messed me up.

So I went to drinking and drugging even harder. And around that time is when I met my husband. And I was still spinning out of control. He was just my boyfriend then. And I wasn't, you know, listening to anything he had to say. It didn't matter. It was all about what I needed to do to get, you know, free from the fear of dying myself. Because I felt like I was going to die, too.

Tavis: Aaliyah's death scared you in that way?

Blige: Yeah, so when Aaliyah died, that's what scared me. But my girlfriend Nija (ph) died a year before Aaliyah died.

Tavis: Then Aaliyah dies a year later.

Blige: And then Aaliyah died. But the weird thing is they both died August 25th, like in that same thing. So it was like, okay, when Aaliyah passed, it was real heavy for me.

Tavis: Did you think God was trying to say something to you, or somebody was trying to say something to you?

Blige: I think, I don't think that God killed them. I don't believe that. I think that their death was a wake-up call to me, though, to move closer to God. And that's exactly what I did. I just said, you know, Lord, I'm scared. And the enemy, he's not playing out there. He's killing people. He's killing my friends and my peers, you know. So I felt like I was next on the list. Because the weirdest thing was the night that Aaliyah passed was the night that, I had a show at the Apollo.

And when I came, when I left the show at the Apollo, the big test was, okay, I'm going to hang out with my girlfriends. And of course they had the biggest bottle of wine on the table. And I was like, I gotta go. I'm going home to my man, and make him happy, and not smell like alcohol for a change when I come in. And when I came in, I was sober, and it was, you know, pretty early for me. He was like, I'm glad you came in sober, because I was going to leave you. And about two hours later, someone calls us and says...

Tavis: Hey, you can't leave Mary J.

Blige: Please. You can leave Mary J. if Mary J. is not going to make you a better person, or help you in your life. Why waste your time? So about two hours later, the phone rings, and they're like, Aaliyah just passed. The same night that I said, you know, that I stopped drinking, you know.

Aaliyah passed. And that did it for me. The fact that I was like, okay, I'll give it all up. I'm going to within my husband. I'm going to give my life to God, is the night that Aaliyah dies. It's weird to me. So it's like, you know what? I'm cool. I don't have to do this.

Tavis: Again, I'm unabashed about my respect for your work, and my love for you as a person. And one of the reasons for that, in addition to what I said earlier, is that there is so much, as my friend said, so much humanity in your music. So much humanity in what you have to say. You're not just performing, you're not just a hip-hop star, you are one of those artists who's actually saying something in the music. Where does that come from? When did that develop for you?

Blige: It comes from so much, I mean, Tavis, from a child, I've been troubled. Like so many things have happened to me as a kid. Like from five to 17, I've been, you know, going through things and getting hurt and just, oh. And I know there's some other little girl out there somewhere in the world going through the same thing. And it hurt me so bad, I've got to change my life, so that she can see that you don't have to soak in this. You can get out of this, too.

You can change, too. Although they might have hurt you, but right now, I hate to say this, we're responsible to get out of it. Because, you know, if we hold grudges against them for the rest of our lives, it's only going to make us miserable and make us stop. But they're going to keep going. As we stop and we hate them.

So what I've learned to do was just pray and ask God to forgive me for holding a grudge against them, and forgive them and release them. It's not easy. But I learned that it's freed me up. And I can go on with my life, you know? And, I mean, there's nothing we can do about what people do to us. We have to change what, we have to change our lives ourselves.

Tavis: There's one question I ain't got to ask, and that is, why do you call this new CD "The Breakthrough.' I guess I don't got to ask that one, do I?

Blige: No, I mean, it's basically what I just said, you know. You get to a point where you start to understand that only you can do this. You know, we can scream, oh, such and such, oh, this, but we owe it to ourselves to get it together. We owe it to God, I'm speaking for Mary J. Blige.

Mary J. Blige owes it to God for keeping her alive for so many years, and getting me through all this stuff, to get it together and to treat my husband right, to treat my friends and family right, and to treat myself right. First of all, love myself more than I do, you know? Stop downing myself and doubting myself, and just making, you know, just messing up.

Tavis: Tell me about this CD.

Blige: The CD is just based on, you know, once you get to a point where you understand what life is, it's a beautiful thing. It's not all going to be happy and it's not all going to be sad. But you can really be happy once you know that trials and tribulations are coming.

Tavis: You've got some great collaborations on this thing, too. Bono.

Blige: Yeah, Bono, Jay-Z. That's it. But those are huge names.

Tavis: That's what I mean, yeah. That's it, Bono and Jay-Z. That ain't bad company to keep.

Blige: I believe Will.I.Am is gonna get on there, I hope he does. I think he's on there, yeah.

Tavis: And you're doing a tour for this, I hope and pray.

Blige: Absolutely.

Tavis: You still love the touring thing?

Blige: I love what I do, you know. I'm just starting to feel like I need another challenge in my life other than this. I mean, this is like my ministry, you know. This is something that I will always do. But I need to do something else to get the rest of this out.

Tavis: So what's that, acting, clothing line?

Blige: Clothing line is definitely...

Tavis: Cosmetics line?

Blige: Absolutely. I want to do a clothing line, because I've just always wanted women to wear things that make them feel comfortable, you know? And I want to do acting, because there's so much that I can draw from to bring to the big screen.

Tavis: She is not a legend in her own mind, but a legend in her own time. She is the one and only Mary J. Blige. The new CD, "The Breakthrough.' I got mine, get yours December 20th. Of course, you're gonna do that anyway, I ain't got to tell you that. Mary J, I love you. Nice to see you.

Blige: Good to see you too, Tavis.

Tavis: Thank you. That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Thanks for watching. Good night from LA. And, as always, keep the faith.