Mary J. Blige Talks Doing ‘The London Sessions’ With Naughty Boy, Disclosure And Sam Smith

Last month, Mary J. Blige headed to London to record new music. Now, The Guardian reports that the resulting album, The London Sessions (out November on Capitol), finds her inspired by and working closely with some of the U.K.’s brightest stars: Naughty Boy, Emeli Sande, Disclosure, Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes.

The list of collaborations so far is staggering: Smith wrote four songs total. He teamed with songwriter Napes (Smith’s “Stay With Me,” Clean Bandit‘s “Rather Be”) for a doo-wop track called “Therapy.” Disclosure worked with Blige on a ’90s house song “Right Now,” to pick up where they left off in the inspired duet version of Settle‘s “F For You.” Naughty Boy, who’s overseeing The London Sessions, also wrote a song with Sande that evokes “early 00s U.K. garage” called “Pick Me Up.”

“The music is free over here the way it used to be in the States,” Blige says. “Artists are just free to do what they love. Listening to the radio you can hear the freedom. The music is living and breathing – you can hear that from Adele‘s last album. It was massive – a big deal. But she did what she loved.”

Read about the making of The London Sessions (so far) at The Guardian.

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