The Meaning of Mariah Carey

by Mariah Carey

Mr. Ali and his wife were seated in special chairs at the foot of the stage. As part of the performance, I was to walk down the stairs and sing right in front of him. I must have appeared to literally be in my underwear to him and his wife. The camera was cutting to him so the audience could see how animated he was, seemingly trying to get out of his chair with excitement—which at that stage in the progression of his Parkinson’s syndrome was not an easy task, but which also caused a delighted reaction from the audience (well, most of them). Thank God, during the performance I didn’t know I was being inappropriate to his family; none of the producers brought this small but significant religious-respect issue to my attention. You know, they could’ve just said, “Maybe tone down the cute kitten moves and bring the hem down a little—perhaps some sleeves would be nice?” I didn’t know. I truly hope the family forgave my youthful ignorance and inexperience.

  Legends and heavy hitters like Angela Bassett and Diahann Carroll were there. At the end of my song, Will Smith was to stand on his other side, and he and I would help Mr. Ali walk up to the stage for a finale. All the presenters and performers were gathered, and there was a huge confetti drop, and I was on the arm of one of my absolute heroes. In all the festive mayhem, he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You’re dangerous.” Mind you, he wasn’t talking very much at that point, but I heard him loud and clear. We both had a private laugh about it.

  The man—the people’s champion, who knocked out some of the toughest men in the world and knocked down some of the toughest racial barriers—used his precious breath to joke with me that I was dangerous. After that experience, proclaiming a moment legendary elevated it to a whole new weight class.

  -Stevie-

  “What color are the lights on the Christmas tree? What do they look like?” I overheard Stevie Wonder ask his brother as he led him through the MGM Grand. We were both there for the Billboard Music Awards. He had come to present me with the Artist of the Decade award. Of all the musicians and all the music I’ve been inspired by, Stevie Wonder would have to be my favorite. As a writer and composer he is a deep diver. He goes all the way to the floor of his soul and brings back treasures so vivid, so full of emotion, they sonically shift your composition. And as a singer, he delivers with complete honesty and heart. He is truly my diamond standard.

  I have had the privilege to work with him a few times. Once, he even played me some new material he was working on and asked my opinion. One of the greatest songwriters ever casually let me listen to his work and was genuinely interested in my feedback—as a musician. A musical moment I will always treasure was an ad-lib he did on my song “Make It Look Good” on Me. I am Mariah … The Elusive Chanteuse. Right at the very beginning, he says or plays, “I love you, Mariah” through his harmonica! And then laughs his sweet, brilliant, healing laugh, and then the song begins. It was like a little blessing before the meal. He played his distinctive harmonica throughout the whole thing, as only Stevie Wonder can.

  I often think about that moment when he asked about the Christmas lights on the tree. This man who has brought so much pure joy to people all around the globe, spanning generations, through the power of his incredible musical contribution—a man who has lit up the world with his presence and his songs, a man who has done so much for humanity—was asking to have a twinkle described to him. In that moment, “Mr. Wonder-full” showed me how not to take the simple things for granted and confirmed a Christmas tree can bring happiness, seen and unseen, as long as it is made from love.

  When I received the Billboard’s Artist of the Decade award, I declared, “Now I can be who I really am,” because I had just finished the Rainbow album and was on my road to emancipation. Receiving that recognition was a huge accomplishment, yet what I received from Stevie Wonder transcends statues, accolades, and all decades.

  -Prince-

  Prince gave me a Bible, bound in deep-brown leather, with gold embossed letters. I still have that holy book, sent to me from a brilliant being, a brother angel, who came to my aid in difficult times more than once. Prince defended me as an artist. Around the time of Butterfly, a couple of label executives who shall remain nameless (because I don’t really know them) were questioning my musical direction in conversation with him. By that time he had reached guru status as a musician (which didn’t stop labels from trying to screw him as a recording artist—when it comes to money and power, nothing and no one is sacred, not even music royalty).

  They asked him: “Why is she trying to be so urban?” and “What is she doing?”

  “I think that’s just her shit. That’s what she really likes,” was his transcendent answer. Exactly right!

  It’s just her shit. Namaste, suckahs.

  When I first met Prince, he told me he loved “Honey.” Oh! My! God!

  Prince knows my song! I shouted in my head. I was over the moon—the maestro of modern music knew my song! We went on to talk about songwriting and the treachery of “the industry” in subsequent casual meetings at parties or a club (Prince was notorious for randomly, mystically appearing at a nightclub); he was always very giving of his time with me.

  One night he, JD, and I stayed up all night talking about the State of the Industry and how, as new leaders, we could gain more independence, agency, and ownership over our work. Then, one day, I got the invitation to Paisley Park. I had frequently fantasized about writing with him, like Wendy and Lisa, or Sheila E.—all incredible, undercelebrated musicians. (I really, really wanted to write and record a “Purple Rain”-esque ballad duet. I mean, who didn’t, but I know it would’ve been pretty perfect.) I remember when I arrived at the Paisley Park compound, from the outside it looked like an unremarkable series of big white structures, almost like a big car dealership. But then I went inside and saw the magnificent purple motorcycle from Purple Rain. I knew I had entered a whole ’notha world.

  I brought Prince sketches of a song I had been playing around with. My process with writing partners is to come in with some concepts—lyrical or melodic sketches—then go back and forth with ideas. We did a lot of talking. I think it was a bit of a test; you see, Prince was a real writer and composer—a lot of people claim they are, but we know. I think he wanted to see where my head and my writing chops were. I was already thinking about songs for Silk (the girl band I had in Glitter, who I loosely modeled after Vanity 6). I talked to him about how I wanted to use “Nasty Girl,” the song he wrote for Vanity 6, as a sample for a film I was working on (similarly to the way ended I up using “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On”). Prince challenged me.

  “That’s Vanity’s song,” he said.

  He asked me why I couldn’t be “inspired” by it, as Puff and Biggie were with “You nasty, boy / You nasty.” I let him know rather than just the catchy words, I loved the structure and the beat of the song—the feeling. Prince wasn’t at all being shady; he was being protective. He was being instructive. He told me to finish the song I had begun, and we would work on another new one. I never finished the song, and we never made our song together. I really wish we had (remaking “The Beautiful Ones” would be the closest I would get). Protect your ideas, protect your music, was the message I got from that trip to Paisley Park.

  When the Glitter debacle was in full swing, Prince reached out to me. He called me often, and what he said to me then I always will cherish inside. He was deeply private, and I will keep the details to myself. But I will say his wise words soothed me. He gave me encouragement, like the big brother I never had. I listened to Prince’s music nearly daily (and to this day—Roc and Roe can identify all his G-rated songs!). I don’t know if he could ever know what his connecting with me in that storm meant to me. It gave me hope in a desolate time.

  Prince had his own singular and wondrous relationship with God. He composed his own concept of spirituality and sexuality, and it was as special and unique as he was. But in the end, when my soul was in need, Prince sent me the sacred scriptures, the beloved books, the Word of God bound together. Prince
helped save me on a soul level, when I needed it the most, and through his music he continues to save the day, every day.

  DEM BABIES

  Boy meets girl and looks in her eyes

  Time stands still and two hearts catch fire

  Off they go, roller coaster ride

  —“Love Story”

  Much of the iconic television of the 1990s missed me. I never got to watch Seinfeld (now I’m such a stan of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee) and I had no time for—and was isolated from—actual friends, let alone sitcom ones. All my time was spent hustling, working, praying, and making “Mariah Carey.” I barely watched children’s shows when I was a child, so I certainly didn’t know of any Nickelodeon shows or their stars. I had no clue All That was all that, and I had no idea who Nick Cannon was until 2002, when I saw the film Drumline (which I loved). I thought he was very good in it (I also thought he was cute—very). That was all.

  A couple of years later, Brat was telling me, “He loves you. He always talks about you,” referring to Nick. She was a fan of Wild ’N Out, his hip-hop–infused improv sketch-comedy show on MTV, which I also had no knowledge of. Wild ’N Out came out the same year as The Emancipation of Mimi, which consumed me in a good way—finally. It was an incredible moment of long-awaited, phenomenal success. I was hearing one of several of my songs from that album on the radio thirty times a day! It was a massive moment for my fans too. It was what they needed. They need to see me come back like that. I really believe, for better or worse, the Lambily, the fans and I, go through things together.

  “We Belong Together” was a colossal song. It was breaking chart and airplay records all over the United States and internationally. It became my sixteenth number-one record on the Billboard Hot 100 (also making me the first woman artist to concurrently hold the number-one and number-two spots, with “Shake It Off”). It ended up staying in a top-ten position for twenty-three weeks and charted for forty-three weeks total. It tied for the third-longest-running number-one song in US chart history (behind “One Sweet Day,” Billboard ’s most popular song of the nineties). Billboard named “We Belong Together” song of the decade (song of the what?) for the 2000s, and the ninth most popular song of all time.

  It won two Grammys, two Soul Train Awards, and Song of the Year at the ASCAP Awards and BMI Awards (among others). It even won a Teen Choice Award—the Choice Love Song award. I didn’t know Nick was set to present the award to me (apparently he insisted to the Teen Choice producers). The show was loud, bright, and zany—the award is a surfboard. I recall first seeing Nick and taking in his curious oversized nautical-inspired ensemble, consisting of giant white shorts, a big ocean-blue polo shirt, a lemon-yellow sweater tied around his neck, ankle socks, and sneakers. After he presented me with my board-award, I said, “I heard about all the nice things you’ve been saying about me.” With a genuine beaming smile and a flame in his eyes, he replied, “If you give me a chance, I’ll prove all of it is true.”

  A cute moment—very.

  More time passed, and Brat wouldn’t let up, insistent that Nick and I really connect. We began talking on the phone, almost daily. Then, finally, we did get together, and it was irresistibly fun. And at the time, I was all about having fun. I wasn’t ready to be grown-up again. I had had to be so grown so fast, professionally and especially in my first marriage. (Marrying was something I vowed never to do again.)

  I missed out on so much as a teen, and Nick, who had a perpetual teen spirit, was charmingly refreshing. He also felt safe to me. Look, I was hanging out with Dipset in this era, and while it was a blast, the element of legitimate danger was ever present, okay? Besides, no matter how famous or fine, no matter how well they could rhyme, I held a strict “no rappers” rule. I was very serious about protecting myself from being labeled “that girl.” It was critical to me to maintain, most importantly, my self-respect, but also my professional respect from the tight boys’ club of artists, producers, and management I collaborated with. I worked with some of the greatest (and some unknown at the time) hip-hop artists of all time. I didn’t ever want things to get reality-show messy up in the studio. And the “rap packs” will talk amongst themselves (c’mon; they talk for a living!).

  It was bad enough there were already a plethora of ridiculous rumors about me sleeping with rappers anyway. If you’re not careful, all your business could be all up in somebody’s bars (“cause they all up in my business like a Wendy interview”). After Wendy Williams went on a tangent about me on the radio, the New York Post picked up the story and I woke up to the headline “Sexcapades,” with my photo underneath. They called me, JD, Q-Tip, and some of my creative collaborators the “Hard Partying Rap Posse”—I can’t. I was not going to give the mill actual fodder. What mattered was that I knew what the truth was, and I was committed to holding to it.

  But I regarded Nick as a producer, comedian, and actor—I had no idea he had real rapper aspirations. He laughed a lot, and he made me laugh. We made each other laugh a lot. We talked about life and music. I just wanted to be around him. Once, I even left a date with a very handsome and legendary basketball player to ride in the car with Nick so he could be the first to listen to my newest album, E=MC2. I was excited about it, and I wanted to listen to it with him.

  During this time I was finally pulling my whole self together. I’d already gone through a spiritual cleansing, getting baptized and continuing my therapy. Now I was focusing on my physical self as well. I was working intensely with an amazing trainer, Patricia. The first single for the new album was “Touch My Body,” so I had to get “fit in the body” in preparation.

  I was feeling stronger, and I hadn’t felt good about myself in a while. We were going to cast my new friend Nick in the “Touch My Body” video, since he was a comedian and we were taking a humorous twist with it. (I mean, c’mon, what other direction could I go with a lyric like, “’Cause if you run your mouth / And brag about this secret rendezvous / I will hunt you down”? Otherwise, it would’ve been a stalker movie.) But the role in the video was for a computer geek, and while Nick was really funny, he wasn’t a convincing geek. Jack McBrayer, however, was a genius pick, and we had the absolute best time making the video.

  Thanks to my fans, who really got behind the song, knowing how significant it would be, “Touch My Body” became my eighteenth number-one single. I’m forever grateful to the family of Lambs. I’m also grateful for everybody at the record label who was so devoted to the album and to me. It was my biggest so far; it seemed to do the impossible by pushing me past the record long held by Elvis Presley for the all-time most number-one singles. We did end up casting Nick as the love interest in the next video, “Bye Bye,” which we shot in Antigua. Our chemistry was natural, strong, and familiar. The comfort and the intimacy captured on film were real. And after that shoot, we didn’t say bye-bye to each other for a long time.

  I was enjoying having a fresh, new romantic moment with Nick. We even joked about how we were going to pace ourselves and not rush anything. Once, he sent me a gigantic, gorgeous bouquet of flowers while I was in London, signing the card, “from a Pace University dropout,” because things were going fast, fast. We’d quickly established a solid friendship, then even more quickly hopped on our own underground love roller coaster. We could share our layers with each other. We connected on some very core things. He was a good guy. He was faith based. He was ambitious. He had been in the entertainment industry for a long time, so he understood the madness. He paid attention to me. The power dynamics between us felt even.

  I was clear with Nick that I was not at all interested in becoming physically vulnerable again. I was not going there unless there was complete commitment, which at the time meant marriage. (So, obviously I would have had to break the vow I made to myself about never marrying again.) Nick respected my position.

  * * *

  I sincerely thought I would never have kids. Our relationship changed that. We talked very seriously about having children
, and that changed everything. Having children together became our reason. Our desire to have children became a force of nature and why we got married so quickly.

  Way back then it was the simple things

  Anklets, nameplates that you gave to me

  Sweet Tarts, Ring Pops

  Had that candy bling

  And you were my world

  —“Candy Bling”

  The whole world is pink yet lavender when you’re in a good swirl, and we were in a sweet swirl (a swirl is the opposite of a spiral). Nick’s proposal to me was wrapped in childlike romance. He was always eating candy, which the “eternally twelve” in me found totally acceptable for a grown man. On the evening the Empire State Building was scheduled to be lit up in my signature “pink yet lavender” colors, in celebration of a native New Yorker making history with “Touch My Body” setting a new record, Nick and I were chilling in the Moroccan room, talking, laughing, and listening to music. With that enormous, luminous smile of his, Nick gave me one of those big candy Ring Pops; it was among other confections inside a little metal Hello Kitty lunch box. I thought, Okay, this is cutely festive—I’ll eat some celebratory candy with him. Disguised as a candy pop ring was a large, clear emerald-cut diamond, flanked by two moon-cut diamonds, surrounded by smaller pink diamonds—a very real ring! It was dazzling and matched the situation. I wore a lavender dress with a pink cardigan, and we took a helicopter ride over the city and marveled at the lights and reveled in our moment. That night, Nick and I sparkled and shined brighter than the Empire State Building itself.

  Our wedding was just about the absolute opposite of my first. It was a total spiritual celebration, not mostly an industry production. It was intimate—maybe a dozen people in all. I had my pastor, Bishop Clarence Keaton, come in from Brooklyn to officiate. We held it at my beautiful house in Eleuthera, Bahamas. The white silk matte jersey gown I wore was custom-made for me by Nile Cmylo, an independent women’s designer I’d worked with for years, not by a high-profile fashion house. It had a simple, form-fitting silhouette, and my shoulder-length veil required no handlers, only a few bobby pins. My ex-sister’s first son, Shawn—whom I lovingly refer to as my nephew-slash-brother-slash-uncle-slash-cousin-slash-grandfather, because he really has been the blood family member who has been with me and for me in so many capacities, and I cherish him—walked me down the sandy, salmon-colored aisle. And after the ceremony, I kicked off my Manolos and twirled barefoot in the fine pink grains, allowing the hem of my cloud-colored gown to swish and sway in the aqua-blue waters. We basked in the glow of the Bahamian sunset and genuine love. It was ours to have and to hold. We didn’t overstage anything. We didn’t even really care about photos (though, ironically, they ended up as a cover story for People). This time, I was sipping fine champagne with fine friends—no more lonely, salty tears in sad, sugary daiquiris.