She may not have taken home the hardware, but Mary J. Blige already made history by being the first person ever nominated for Best Original Song and Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. She performed "Mighty River" this past Sunday, and you can revisit it here.
Now, it seems like the airtime, coupled with the recognition for her incredible performance in Mudbound, have given her nominated song a big streaming boost, Billboard reports.
"Mighty River" actually saw the biggest jump among any of the original song nominees, seeing a 321 percent increase in streams on Sunday compared to even just the day before. Performers like Sufjan Stevens also saw a bump in streaming, but not as significant as Blige's.
The singer and actress was nominated as a songwriter along with Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson, and she may have lost to "Remember Me" from the film Coco but ended up with a win of a different kind. The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul definitely left her mark on the Academy Awards stage and even with such an illustrious career behind her, she's still grateful for the recognition her work has been receiving in recent months.
“It feels really good to be recognized, with all these nominations, because it shows that someone recognizes my hard work and the dedication and the time and how serious I’m taking this craft,” she said in an interview with The Los Angeles Times. “That means a lot because I never wanted to take this lightly, [and] I didn’t want people to look at me like I didn’t take it seriously — because you have the Queen Latifahs and the Tarajis [P. Henson] and the Angela Bassetts and the Viola Davises, who worked really hard to pave the way for us. I really want them to be proud of me as well.”
