MARY J. BLIGE IS ON HER MUSIC SAVED MY LIFE TOUR & SAY'S A 10TH ALBUM IS IN THE WORKS!

Her records are filled with intense moments of pain and joy, but when she is just sitting there without a microphone or spotlight in front of her, Mary J. Blige is cool and a lot of fun.
Put aside the glam and the sassy delivery and what emerges is a woman who enjoys a good chat and comes across as a deeply spiritual person. Call her the High Priestess of Hip Hop.

Eleven days ago, Blige embarked on a 17-concert fall trek that she dramatically labels her "Music Saved My Life Tour." It comes to the MGM Grand at Foxwoods next Sunday.

To some, the image may conjure up a hospital patient suddenly brought back from the brink by a Ludacris song like "Release Therapy."

"Music makes us want to live," says Blige. "You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has."

As a child "I always wanted to be a singer," she says. "The music my mother played in the house moved me — Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life."

The nine-time Grammy winner will probably feature songs from her latest CD, "Stronger With Each Tear," at Foxwoods. Most of the tracks feature her usual R&B beat, but the real difference is in the sharply defined lyrics.

With "Stronger," for example, Blige says it was a time when all the activities in her life − singing, managing her new Matriarch record label, introducing a line of fragrances on the Home Shopping Network, and establishing a foundation to aid women in need − battled for her time and energies.

"I'm not ungrateful," she says. "But the body and the mind give you signals that you have to change. I was afraid. I felt myself weakening. I needed new strength."

So she took a deep breath. And in the album's title track, arguably the most powerful song on the disk, she explains how people helping one another can get you over the speed bumps.

In "I Am," she is back to her confident self. "I needed to say that," she says.

Blige's tale began in the Bronx where she was born on Jan. 11, 1971; she later moved to Yonkers. At 17, she made an impromptu cover of Anita Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture" that found its way to Uptown
Records. With the release of her first album, "What's the 411?" in 1992, Blige shot to stardom. A string of hit CDs followed, including "My Life," "The Breakthrough" and the unbelievable "Growing Pains."

Yet, with all her recording successes, the one thing Blige says she is most proud of "is my Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now [FFAWN]. We help save lives.

"We help young women, single women, to better themselves. We help them go to high school and later help them get into college. There are 50 women currently in the program. It's the thing I am most passionate about. To save a life, well, it doesn't get much better than that."

Nevertheless, music has to come in a tie for first because when Blige lets go with that powerful, glorious voice there are few more joyous moments. And as if to prove the point, very quietly she notes there is a 10th CD in the works, of which the crowd at Foxwoods might get a taste.

"Yes, we're working on one," she admits, and, although she won't say, the talk is that some of the guests will include Jay-Z, Swizz Beatz, Johnta Austin and Ryan Leslie. "I don't know what we're calling it. I'm not rushing to come out with it. When it is done, it is done."

And then, it will be on to something else for Mary J. Blige. It's the spirit in her.