Happy birthday to this 9-time Grammy winner!

For those of you who don’t know, Ms. Mary J. Blige is one of America’s favorite singers. In fact, she’s sold over 48 million records since her debut in the early 1990s and has even collaborated with legends like U2, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, and Andrea Bocelli!

To learn a little bit more about the early years of “The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul,” we turned to Rolling Stone.

Blige was born in the Bronx but spent her early years in Savannah, Georgia, where she sang in a Pentecostal church. Her family moved to suburban Yonkers, New York, where Blige continued to sing. Her first demo (recorded at a karaoke studio in a shopping mall) was a version of Anita Baker’s “Caught Up in the Rapture,” which eventually got her signed by Andre Harrell to Uptown Records.

Blige’s debut, What’s the 411? (Number Six Pop, Number One R&B, 1992), mixed her affinity for classic soul (she covered Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing”) with a contemporary urban edge. The album includes cameos by rappers Grand Puba, Heavy D., C.L. Smooth, De La Soul’s Mase, and EPMD’s Erick Sermon. Blige first charted with “You Remind Me” (Number 29 Pop, Number One R&B, 1992), from the film Strictly Business, but it was her debut album’s single “Real Love” (Number Seven Pop, Number 1 R&B, 1992) made Blige one of the biggest crossover artists of the year. In 1993 a remix album of 411 was released and the “Sweet Thing” single peaked at Number 28 on the Pop charts.