Let’s talk about Mariah Carey. I think she is a perfect example of what differs the musical ideals of contemporary rnb from those of older soul music. You see, Mary J. Blige - that’s a soul singer. Mariah Carey isn’t. But in my book, Mariah’s best songs easily outshines those by Mary. Soul music is about expressing inner conflicts and drama. That’s not what Mariah Carey does - what she does is make music as a form of escapism. She paints the sky with a rainbow of beats and melodies, and lets that rainbow hit the dancefloor.

But her music is not always without depth. ‘We Belong Together’, perhaps her greatest achievement and one of the best singles of this decade, looks like an ordinary love song at first glance, a song in which the singer realizes that she still loves the guy she left and that she regrets leaving him. But actually it is a love song sung by Mariah Carey to herself. The person she misses is not a lover, but her former self, the young, strong, self-assured girl who was content with her life - the person Mariah Carey was before she met Tommy Mottola and got propelled into superstardom. What happens in the song is that Mariah retrieves this lost piece of herself. She returns to herself and find peace. This dimension of the song is what makes Mariah’s vocal performance so passionate and heart-felt. But the nice thing about the song is that it works as an ordinary love song as well, and a very fine one at that. It is not a self-pitying emo song, it is never depressing - it just states that “goddammit, I still love him!”, it reminds us how difficult it is to stop loving someone after the relationship has ended, even if it was inevitable that it did end. As such, it is a much more successful song than Rihanna’s and Ne-Yo’s ‘Hate That I Love You’ which uses the same theme, more or less.

The interesting thing about Mariah Carey is her transformation as an artist. From the early years as a successful but boring pop-ballad singer to the cool queen she is now, the road has been long and bumpy. A turning point was the Bad Boy remix of ‘Fantasy’ (1995), the lead single of her fifth album. Produced by Sean “P Diddy” Combs and featuring a stripped-down beat and a guest appearance by the one and only Ol’ Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan (as well as background vocals by the lovely Kelly Price), it was a complete departure from everything she had done up to that point. A testament of how important Puff was for the evolution of music in the 90’s, the single was raw, fun (especially the “what you gonna do when you get out of jail?” call-and-response part) and dancefloor-friendly. It was light years from the sentimental ballads and the vocal aerobics that had made Mariah a star.

For her next album, 1997’s Butterfly, Mariah dived even deeper into hiphop and rnb territory. Having recently divorced her husband and former manager Tommy Mottola, she said interviews that she felt a new freedom to do whatever she felt like doing. Consequently, her image shifted from righteous good girl to sexy woman. The album included the magnificent funky single ‘Honey’, produced by Q-Tip among others, and ‘The Roof’ which is probably the only pop song based on a Mobb Deep sample (the loop from the gritty Queensbridge duo’s ‘Shook Ones pt. II’ was used elegantly). But Mariah didn’t want to break entirely with her old audience, and so the album contained a certain amount of syrupy ballads.

The pattern repeated on her next effort, 1999’s Rainbow. The album’s first single was the showstopper ‘Heartbreaker’ featuring top-notch rapping by Jay-Z and the charming shouts of mixtape king DJ Clue (who also produced). It was dancefloor euphoria all the way. The remix of the same song, featuring Da Brat and sampling Snoop Dogg’s “Ain’t no fun (if the homies can’t have none)” was very popular, but personally I don’t like it as much as the original version. However, ‘Rainbow’ was in whole an uninspired album, and Mariah’s new semi-naked look combined with her anxiousness not to lose her tweenie audience made for a very strange and tacky album cover (it looks like someone has left a Playboy magazine in kindergarten). This trend continued on her successive albums Glitter (2001) and Charmbracelet (2002). Both these albums were disappointments, as the discrepancy grew between Mariah Carey’s dramatic personal life (she suffered a mental breakdown in 2001) and her cheerful stage persona. It was as if she couldn’t carry the joyous celebratory rnb hits with credibility any longer; she wasn’t there emotionally. The somewhat desperate collaborations with the then-very-popular boy band Westlife were also a sad ingredient in her carrer. However, in 2002 she sang the chorus for Busta Rhyme’s ‘I Know What You Want’, spawning yet another memorable rapper/singer collaboration, a genre she had helped created.

The big comeback came in 2005 with the aforementioned ‘We Belong Together’ and the album The Emancipation of Mimi which was a huge success (6 x platinum!). The album contained some confessional songs, but more importantly, it had Mariah back at the peak of her powers - confident, charming, sexy and with a voice that took off like a jet plane. The album had great production and songwriting, most notably by Jermaine Dupri and Johnta Austin, but also from Kanye West and The Neptunes. With this album, Mariah Carey finally hit home. After it, she made another notable collaboration with Jermaine Dupri: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s single ‘Lil’ L.O.V.E’ (2007) on which she was a featured guest, along with rapper Bow Wow. (This was not the first time Mariah collaborated with Bone; she sang a duet with the thuggish doo-woppers on ‘Breakdown’ from Butterfly.)

In 2008, Mariah’s next album appeared, aptly titled E=MC². Obviously, it was an attempt at a sequel to “The Emancipation of Mimi”, but it was not as successful. Nevertheless, it is stronger album, with more edge an fresh club-friendly beats. The album opener, ‘Migrate’, is produced by Danja and is perhaps his most satisfactory song to date. Mariah teams up with The-Dream on ‘Touch My Body’ which proves to be a match made in heaven: The-Dream’s trademark pop sensibility and clever lyrics (”If there’s a camera up in here I best not catch this flick on YouTube / cause if you run your mouth and brag about this secret rendez-vous / I will hunt you down”) suits Mariah perfectly. DJ Toomp, the man behind T.I.’s ‘What You Know’, produces the sunny ‘I’ll Be Loving U Long Time’ which boosts an irresistible melody and, in the remix, rapping by T.I. Another rapper collaboration is ‘Side Effects’ where Young Jeezy shines on the beautifully menacing Scott Storch track. Other highlights include ‘I’m That Chick’ and the reggae-tinted ‘Cruise Control’. One of the best albums of 2008 if you ask me.

Rumor has it that the next Mariah Carey album will be called MC3 and that Mariah will work extensively with The-Dream on this effort. We have already heard their duet, ‘My Love’, which will appear on The-Dream’s upcoming album Love vs. Money. Personally, I like it a lot: the chord progression is a direct tribute to ‘We Belong Together’ and The-Dream also winks at R. Kelly when he sings “who’s been willing to go half on a baby?”. I think the album will be great. The-Dream and Mariah could easily create a terrific album, just the two of them, but hopefully we will get some Jermaine Dupri and Danja songs on it as well.

Mariah Carey seems to be exactly where she wants to be now. Artistically, she has evolved impressively throughout the years. The seed that was planted on the ‘Fantasy’ remix has grown into one of the biggest trees in the rnb forest. Still, she is separated from the rest of the rnb scene and always will be. She is the crooning diva that transformed into a hiphop loving pop queen - more usually (and sadly), it is the other way around. She is not “the queen of soul” or “the queen of rnb”, nor does she attempt to be. Instead, she is the queen of her own little genre: brilliantly dancefloor-friendly rnb pop. And who can say no to that?