Recording and Music
After being signed to Uptown Records, Blige began working with record producer Puff Daddy. He became the executive producer and produced a majority of the album. The title, What's the 411?, derived from Blige's past occupation as a 4-1-1 operator; it was also an indication by Blige of being the "real deal". The album contains elements of hip hop soul and new jack swing, The music was described as "revelatory on a frequent basis". Blige was noted for having a "tough girl persona and streetwise lyrics", which gave the album "a gritty undertone and a realism missing from much of the devotional love songs ruling the charts at that time". Havelock Nelson of Entertainment Weekly expressed that Blige "bends her gospel-bred pipes around streetwise collages consisting of hard drumbeats, rugged rap samples, and hazy synthesizer lines", describing déjà vu of "the most accomplished fusions of soul values and hip-hop to date".
The album begins with "Leave a Message", a collection of Blige's answering machine messages over a drum beat. The following two tracks, "Reminisce" and "You Remind Me", are melancholy songs that are overlaid with hip hop beats. A cover of Chaka Khan's "Sweet Thing" followed.
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Famous quotes containing the words recording and/or music:
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower yet, oh faintly gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
“Woe weeps out her division when she sings.”
Droop herbs and flowers;
Fall grief in showers;
“Our beauties are not ours”:
Oh, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)