Thick Of It

Album: Strength Of A Woman (2016)
Charted: 117
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Songfacts®:

  • Mary J. Blige tells us she's no quitter as she recounts a tumultuous relationship.

    So tell me who
    Who's gonna love
    You like I do
    Who will you trust
    I gave you too much
    Enough is enough
    Now we're in the thick of it


    Blige announced in July 2016 her divorce from her husband and manager, Martin "Kendu" Isaacs, after 12 years of marriage.
  • The song was released as the first offering from Blige's Strength Of A Woman album. She said:

    "This song is so personal it's almost painful to let it out. I don't hold back though, it's not who I am and there's no way I am going to start changing now. We all deal with love and the emotions that we get tangled up in, and we gotta survive, grow and remain honest to our best selves.

    I feel that with this song and it's the first one off this album I've been immersing myself in for two years now. Music just saves me no matter what in life is happening."
  • Mary J. Blige told NPR how the recording process for this track in the midst of her split from Isaacs nearly broke her down. "This song was originally written about me fighting for my marriage," she said. "The lyrics were completely different, and it was saying things like, 'We just don't give up when we're in the thick of it.'"

    "And then with all of this happening, it was hard to go back to the studio and do it, but I had to do it, in order to - how can I say it? - get free, because my music is therapeutic to me as well," Blige continued. "And if I don't write about it and if I don't sing about where I am in my life, I won't start a healing process."
  • The single went to #1 on the Adult R&B Songs chart.
  • Blige wrote this with the track's producer Darhyl "DJ" Camper Jr. and R&B singer-songwriter Jazmine Sullivan, who had a #1 R&B hit with "I Need U Bad" in 2008.
  • The drum pattern and bassline were sampled from the 1975 Bay City Rollers hit "Give A Little Love."

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