Love and pain have always gone hand in hand in beautiful and haunting melodies. And while we’ve all grew, loved, and lost, only to triumph, to the sounds of Mary J. Blige, there was a predecessor in the form of the late, great Phyllis Hyman.

Her grace and style just as smooth as her honey-soaked voice, Ms. Hyman epitomized the tragic chanteuse who was a victim of the very songs she sang. And while it’s been eleven years since she’d left us, her underratedly influential legacy still lives on.

Tracy