She may be the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, but Mary J. Blige knows how to rock too.
So don’t tell her she doesn’t belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where she will be forever enshrined after being announced as one of the 2024 inductees last month.
The nine-time Grammy winner has actually always had a soft spot for some rock.
“When I was growing up…. I was listening with my mom to soul music and everything, but she also listened to soft rock,” Blige, 53, told The Post as her Strength of a Woman Festival & Summit took over New York this Mother’s Day Weekend.
“So we knew who Elton John was ’cause they played him on these soft-rock stations. And so when I finally got in the music industry, and they was like, ‘Elton John was speaking highly of you,’ I was like, ‘Well, I love ‘Bennie and the Jets.’ ”
Blige went on to get the Rocket Man to reignite his piano fireworks from “Bennie and Jets” on “Deep Inside,” off the singer’s 1999 “Mary” album.
After that, the “No More Drama” singer continued to earn rock props.
“And then Sting reached out, and then Eric Clapton reached out,” said Blige. “And I said, ‘Oh wow! I don’t even know people even know about me like that.’”
But despite collaborating with the likes of U2, Blige was still surprised about her RRHOF induction after getting her second nomination in February.
“When I looked at the [nominees] and I saw Cher and Foreigner and all those rock ’n’ roll bands, I said, ‘Oh well, it’s really nice to have the nomination,’ ” she said. “Because, you know, that was heavy [competition]. You had Sade, you had Mariah [Carey].”
Blige is especially happy and honored to be inducted alongside a certain legendary diva — “Cher’s supposed to have that and probably shoulda been had that” — and some fellow ’90s New York royalty: A Tribe Called Quest. “That was like, ‘Wow, OK hip-hop — we did it!’ ” she said.
But there’s one other queen who Blige believes sorely deserves to also be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: “Patti LaBelle. She’s been rocking forever — since she was with [her group] Labelle. They were ahead with them space outfits and all of that.”
For Blige, though, it will be a crowning moment when she is inducted on Oct. 19 — at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio — 30 years after releasing her 1994 “My Life” masterpiece.
“It was a pivotal point in my life … a point in my life where I had to make a change,” she recalled.
“I was trying to save my own life while I was singing it … And I’m grateful for it.”
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