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Anita Baker: "Angel" [Listen]
Blige's break came after she recorded Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture" at a mall, but this cut -- from Baker's 1983 debut -- is her fave: "It's a blue song, but it's not sad. You've got to listen to the words."

Roy Ayers: "Searchin'"
Vibraphone master Ayers recorded the mellow, disco-ish "Searchin' " in 1976. "I bring this song everywhere with me," Blige says. "It tugs at my heart. I feel joy and pain at the same time."

The Commodores: "Zoom" [Listen]
"I grew up with this," Blige says of the Commodores' quiet-storm ballad from 1977. "I don't know if the singer [Lionel Richie] is talking about dying or finding heaven on Earth."

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