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It takes a village to promote an album, and the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Mariah Carey has at least 10 people with her on arrival at Electric Lady Studios in New York. There's a makeup artist and a hairdresser, a manager and publicists, a lawyer and maybe a bodyguard, as well as a whole bunch of hard-to-place people. Mariah is tall, wearing black boots with high heels and perfectly made up, with hair as straight as ever, earrings that shine from her ears and a megawatt smile. Everyone is in a good mood, like a winning sports team in the locker room at half-time.
Although this is the type of infrastructure needed by celebrities in the 21st century, it is simply the decoration of windows. When things calm down, Mariah and I move into a quiet room in the recording studio to discuss life and music. The mother of two children bows, puts her feet on the coffee table, asks us for red wine and, in the middle of our interview, asks her manager for pizzas to order from her team. She wants a piece of pepperoni, but no more, so she happily eats a slice, balancing it on her pink-painted nails.
When you think about Mariah, you probably have an image of the ultimate diva dripping with diamonds, and even though she seems to wear expensive jewelry (two butterfly rings on the fingers – a gold, a silver – sparkle in the light), she is welcoming and relaxed here in the studio, enthusiastic and committed when she talks about the care she takes in her art. This is something she has not always had the opportunity to discuss because her level of fame has often inspired more questions from reporters about her love life than her songwriting process.
Yes, she is remarkably famous for almost 30 years and yes, she had 18 singles n ° 1 in the cinema. Display panel Hot 100. But she also wrote most of these songs, which have not only been a smart business decision, but also the key to its consistency. Mariah Carey's songs always sound like Mariah Carey songs because they are Mariah Carey songs. His sound is still solid on his 15th album, Caution, his preference for the mid-tempo is a constant in a world that evolves from trend to trend with increasing speed. She has a strange understanding of what suits her singing voice to the rays of the sun and champagne, which sometimes lasts up to seven octaves, allowing her to hit that divine whistle register.
In Mariah's clbadic "Always Be My Baby" in 1996, sweetness is at the rendezvous and many of her lyrics over the years evoke a fantasy of honey, heroes, butterflies and lovers of dreams. But she's also great with a kiss, as she shows on Caution and its main track, "GTFO," which is about as clear as a breaking song that you could hope to have when the next fool breaks your heart. The album is cool, confident, bady, stable in its pleasures, with remarkable collaborations with Ty Dolla $ ign on the sumptuous "The Distance" and with Dev Orange, Blood Orange, on the delicate "Giving Me Life" . "Portrait", the moment of introspection that Mariah makes sure to have on all records and that indicates the ups and downs of a life lived in the light of public eye. "Where am I going from here?" She asks the song. "How can I disappear?"
But it's not because she can be serious that the more frothy diva aspect of her image is not important to her. At a time when celebrities are winning by showing how real they are on Instagram, there's something fabulously escaped – practically Mae West – about Mariah's larger-than-life personality. She sometimes uses the royal "we" by referring to herself and is memorized tirelessly in GIFs – melodramatically casting her sunglbades, her proclamations and her preferences for words like "moment" and "darling". serving as a catnip for an internet that loves zippy one-liners. And she knows it. Her mother was an opera singer – the original definition of the diva – and Mariah tells me that she amuses herself as much in playing the superb aspects of the personality that we observe.
She is a fighter too. She had a difficult childhood, including little money and the tumultuous divorce of her parents. As a biracial girl, she also always felt like a true stranger, a feeling that lasted into adulthood. As a teenager, she was engaged in a recording contract with Sony (her ex-husband, Tommy Mottola, then ex-future and ex-ex-husband), who directed her, who was responsible for her work. helped to become a superstar while restricting his creative and other freedoms.
It took the entirety of his early career to break this contract. Butterfly acting as a release statement. She had to fight her way repeatedly, especially after the failure of her career in the 2001 film. Shine and the soundtrack that accompanies it. She then bounced back on one of the biggest hits of her career, "We Belong Together," in 2005. She had the last word two weeks ago. Shine The soundtrack went to the top of the iTunes charts after fans ran a #JusticeforGlitter campaign. At this point, it seems that even his flops are successful.
In an industry that builds its most glorious stars only to destroy them, Mariah is still a reliable source of joy and happiness for many. She's a rebaduring pop character built into all our psyches – hidden between two visions of blown birthday candles and bedroom singing – but it's also a human being here in front of us, a warm voice that always rings true .
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