Mary Christine Brockert was born in Santa Monica in 1956 to a family of Belgian, Portuguese, Italian, Irish and Native American descent. She sang Harry Belafonte songs at two, appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies as a child, and taught herself guitar, bass and congas. Her family moved to Oakwood, a historically Black neighborhood in Venice sometimes called Venice Harlem, where a godmother figure named Berthelin Jackson and local bands shaped her ear. An audition for a scrapped Motown film about orphans led Berry Gordy to sign her as a solo act, and Rick James set aside a Diana Ross project to produce her 1979 debut, Wild and Peaceful. Motown kept her photo off the cover so R&B radio would play I’m a Sucker for Your Love, and she stunned viewers as Soul Train’s first white female guest.
She co-produced Lady T with Richard Rudolph, then wrote and produced most of Irons in the Fire herself. When Motown refused to release new music yet would not let her leave, she sued in 1982, and the result, known as the Brockert Initiative, barred labels from holding artists under contract while shelving their work. At Epic she reached No. 4 on the Hot 100 with Lovergirl. In 2004, after signing with Cash Money, her album La Doña peaked at No. 6, the same year a falling picture frame in a hotel room left her with lasting seizures. She died in Pasadena on December 26, 2010, at 54.
- She recorded her vocal for the Rick James duet Fire and Desire in one take while running a severe fever, then went to the hospital.
- Her rap verse on Square Biz name-checked Shakespeare and Bach alongside Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni and Sarah Vaughan.
- The Fugees built Fu-Gee-La on the melody of her late-1980s hit Ooh La La La.
- She was godmother to Maya Rudolph and to Marvin Gaye’s daughter Nona.
- Her daughter Alia Rose finished the posthumous album Beautiful, and in 2023 she won a posthumous Grammy as a co-writer of Beyonce’s Cuff It.
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