The Possible Romance of Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon

No, my blog is not being lowered in caliber. This is not a prelude to less refined offerings. My next post promises to be on a refined subject once again.

This post does deal with Romance, however. I wanted to comment on Mariah’s Carey’s recent marriage to Nick Cannon because she was one of the last American singers whom I loved and whose work I avidly patronized as a purchaser.Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon

Mariah and I sort of grew up together. She came on the scene when I was finishing up graduate school. One day I and a few others heard her singing her first hit Vision of Love over the intercom system of the big pharmacy where we worked and mistook her for Whitney Houston. I was a slight fan of Houston, but I never developed devotion for her like I later did for Mariah. Mariah’s voice had a beauty, a kind of soft romanticism that Whitney Houston’s lacked. I had grown up with and passed all the screaming notes of Chaka Khan whom I had loved in middle school. Houston just screamed a little bit too much at times for my matured tastes. I look back, and I think Chaka Khan’s exotic name may have appealed to me more than her singing. Still two of my all time favorite songs of her’s were Sweet Thing and Through the Fire. To my ear, Mariah’s voice bore a resemblance to Whitney Houston’s and she was also influenced by gospel music, one of her favorite singers being Aretha Franklin who happened to be Whitney Houston’s godmother. Nonetheless, I loved more restrained and less earthy sounding R&B. Mariah Carey’s songs spoke to me at that time in my life of my own longings for love.

Like some Elvis fans did when he changed his style in the early 70s, I dropped my devotion for Mariah Carey when she changed not so much her style, but changed whom she was allowing to back up her singing. Where was she getting all of these obscure rappers and an occasional obnoxious well unknown like Snoop Dog? I felt the only reason she was cluttering up her sound was to grab the attention of a new generation. What about we “old folks” whose purchases helped her to be the first artist to top Billboard’s Hot 100 list 5 times? I only listened to her album 2005 The Emancipation of Mimi once before I got rid of it. I have all of her albums prior to Emancipation. Yes she was emancipated all right, on to the fickle teen and 20 something set. I was disappointed and bewildered even more when the album was a hit even though I doubted if the younger crowd even knew that Mariah was over 30, geriatric by their standards for singers and other entertainers.

Even though I felt betrayed and left behind in the dust by Mariah Carey, I am very happy for her about her marriage last week to rapper and actor Nick Cannon. I have thought Nick Cannon was a cutie pie since I first glimpsed him, and he is funny to boot. Mostly I have seen him in passing, but even in passing I thought he rather resembled a cousin of mine who is about his age.

Mariah Carey has had a stormy personal life. She wed music mogul Tommy Mottola in 1993. Mottola was 20 years her senior and some say and Mariah has hinted as well that he was her Svengali. She has dated baseball player Derek Jeter and Latin crooner Luis Miguel. She herself is of Irish, African-American, and Venezuelan parentage. When photos of her were published after Vision of Love was a hit, some in the African-American community wrote her off as “just another white girl trying to sing black.” Mariah went on to counter this and explained her heritage. I was intrigued.

Now Mariah might have some explaining to do about this marriage, but not to me. I support her wholeheartedly in her quest for love. I hope the arguments of some do not break her spirit and ruin a possibly good thing.

Arguments I have heard in the media:

(1) The marriage is a publicity stunt.
(2) I hope she signed a good pre-nup.
(3) I am scared for her because she apparently did not sign a pre-nup. She just scribbled something on a napkin.
(4) Nick Cannon will benefit more from this marriage than she does.
(5) There is an 11 year age difference. (Cannon is 27, and Mariah is 38.)
(6) The marriage was too quick.

Arguments for:
(1) Nick Cannon is not exactly poor.
(2) Nick Cannon is a good actor in his own right.

Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon met when he was directing a video for a song on her latest album E=MC2. Cannon is said to be something of a romantic by friends and family because of his always “falling in love.”

I really hope this is not temporary. I think Mariah may have been alone for quite some time. Nick Cannon has shown himself to be an aesthete where beautiful women are concerned. He has dated exotics like Selita Ebanks who is a Victoria’s Secret model from the Cayman Islands, R&B and pop singer Christina Milian who is of Afro-Cuban descent, and socialite of Armenian extraction Kim Kardashian whose father, the late Robert Kardashian was an attorney on O.J. Simpsons’s dream team. Ebanks and Cannon were briefly engaged. Kim Kardashian currently makes appearances on the reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Carey and Cannon were married at her estate in the Bahamas last week.

I support you Mariah. I don’t relish your music anymore, but I supported you when your movie debut Glitter was savaged by the media and the critics and had the terrible misfortune to premiere on September 11, 2001. I thought the movie was touching, and even today I have it on video.

It is said the couple is very happy, Mariah is blissful, and that they feel they have much in common. I hope the cynics will hold their tongues and try to develop a less cynical, less critical, and more Romantic spirit.

The video at the top of the post is "old school" Mariah, as the youngsters would say.