


Blige, singing about romantic turmoil with streetwise urgency and candor, but she set herself apart with her second and third platinum albums, Just Like You (2007) and A Different Me (2008), risk-taking sets that produced a total of seven Top Ten R&B/hip-hop singles, plus four Grammy nominations for the former.

With The Way It Is (2004), the singer, songwriter, and producer came across as a Bay Area equivalent to Mary J. Known throughout her career for her raspy soprano voice and intensely expressive performance style, Keyshia Cole became one of the most successful R&B artists to emerge in the mid-2000s.
