Mary has done it again. She has released another outstanding album, hot on the heels of her very successful album The Breakthrough. Her latest project, simply and aptly titled Growing Pains, in coignisance of her journey through finding her happy space, is packed with jams to entrall your music senses. The songs contained herein all possess a great amount of creative flair, from beginning to end, proving once more that she more than deserves the title Queen Of Hip Hop/Soul.

She has employed services of phenomenal producers and writers to help her create this amazing body of work. These include the likes of Tricky Sterwart, Neyo, Johnta Austin, The Dream, and Bryan Michael-Cox, just to mention a few. She also features some of the most sought after artists in the R&B and hip hop community, enlisting the help of Usher and Ludacris on two of the tracks on the 17-track album. Even more interesting, she has let her alter-ego Brooklyn (who did some rapping on The Breakthrough) sing this time.

The tracks that stood out the most for me are Talk To Me and Smoke, the former moreso than the latter. Talk To Me is a nice, smooth, and mellow jam that was produced by Eric Hudson and co-written by the man himself, Mary. J Blige, Johnta Austin, Verdine White and Robert Wright. Smoke was masterminded by a young man named Syience on the production ropes, and on the writing side of things by Reggie Perry. The singer's songwriter Neyo penned the lyrics on this one. I like how Smoke sounds, it reminds me of 2 songs from Neyo's debut album, Sign Me Up and Time, both of which I really liked.

Other noteworthy songs include Come To Me (Peace), a nice production from Tricky Sterwart and The Dream helping Mary in writing it; Till The Morning, the only Neptunes-produced song, also written by the Neptune's head producer Pharell; Hurt Again, produced by the master production duo affectionately known as Dre & Vidal; Feel Like A Woman, written by Mary together with Terius Nash and Theron Feemster, Theron also having produced the track; Stay Down, produced by the ever-pleasing Bryan-Michael Cox, co-written by Bryan, Mary and Johnta; and the album-opener Work That, also produced by Theron, this time getting another renowned producer Sean Garrett to help out.

Growing Pains is another winner from Mary J. Blige. This is what quality music is made of. The production is tight and Mary's voice has never sounded better. She sounds comfortable in her range and delivery.

YEAHBO.DOT.NET gives it 4/5 stars.