Mary J. Blige released her latest single “Know” on Thursday, a song that pays tribute to women around the world who have given everything to better their own lives and the lives of their families.
“When you hear the word ‘queen,’ you think of a woman getting everything she wants,” Blige says in the song’s intro. “But it’s not like that at all. See, being a ruler means sacrifice. Most of the time, you get less than what you give. So every woman and mother in the world is a queen, because she sacrificed so much.”
This year, Blige received a Lifetime Achievement Honor at the 2019 BET Awards, where she performed a career-spanning medley of her songs. Blige is currently co-headlining a North American summer tour with the rapper Nas, which began this July and will conclude in September. In anticipation of their tour, the pair released a single, “Thriving,” earlier this year.