Songfacts®:

• Mary J. Blige is searching for a real love in this song from early in her career. Written and produced by Cory Rooney and Fat Boys rapper Mark "Prince Markie Dee" Morales, it showcases her signature soul vocals cut with a hip-hop edge.
• When the song was written, Blige was being taken advantage of by people in the music industry, so the lyrics describe her situation. Co-writer Cory Rooney recalled to Ebony:
  
  "One day, she said with tears in her eyes, 'I just want a real love in my life for once.' We wrote four or five songs before 'Real Love' came together for her. Those songs were more on a Stephanie Mills type of vibe, but no one was really feeling them. She was so emotional back then."
• Mary J. Blige thought she found her real love in Cedric "K-Ci" Hailey of Jodeci. They started dating in the early '90s after recording the duet "I Don't Want To Do Anything" for her What's The 411? album. They broke up around 1997, and in 2003, Blige married the producer Kendu Isaacs. They split in 2016.
  
  In 2023, Blige explained that she finally found her real love, and it was inside her all along. "That's been the strongest song in my journey," she told Entertainment Tonight. "That's what I've been searching for all my life, for real love and people. But then I've finally been working on myself and found it in myself, and now I'm able to see that love matters and that relationship matters."
• The track is built on a drum sample from Audio Two's "Top Billin'," but it originated in The Honey Drippers' 1973 funk classic "Impeach The President."
• This was Mary J. Blige's second single. He first was another upbeat number, "You Remind Me," which was an instant winner, rising to #1 on the R&B chart in July 1992 around the same time her debut album, What's The 411?, was issued. "Real Love" followed to the top in October and was also a pop hit, reaching #7 on the Hot 100.
  
  The fans Blige earned stuck with her, sharing her journey of joy and pain through her music. In America, her first eight albums all went Platinum.
• About the album title: "411" was making the rounds as a slang term for information, so if you asked, "What's the 411," it meant, "What's going on?" That's because back in the day, you dialed 411 to get an operator to look up a phone number for you.
  
  Puff Daddy came up with the album title. There were rumors that Blige worked as an operator, but those weren't true.
• "Real Love" was the first hit song Cory Rooney worked on. He went on to co-write many of Jennifer Lopez' early hits, including "If You Had My Love" and "I'm Real," as well as "Independent Women Part I" for Destiny's Child.
  
  For his co-writer Mark Morales, "Real Love" marked a shift to writing and producing for other artists following his run with The Fat Boys, which ended in 1991 (the group was more popular than you remember - they had four Gold albums).
• Puff Daddy loved his remixes, and he ordered up a bunch for "Real Love." The "Hip Hop Mix" he made with Stetsasonic's Daddy-O, adding a verse from a promising new rapper: The Notorious B.I.G. This mix includes a sample of Betty Wright's 1971 soul single "Clean Up Woman."
• The music video, directed by Marcus Raboy, is a look at Mary when she was rocking streetwear, with a baseball cap and jersey. Raboy's other credits include "Smooth" by Santana and "Naked Eye" by Luscious Jackson.
• Toby Lightman covered this for her debut album, Little Things, in 2004.
• Bits of this song play throughout a 2022 Super Bowl commercial called "Real Love" where Mary J. Blige advocates screenings for health. She was also part of the halftime show, performing alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar.
• "Real Love" is also the title of a 1989 hit for Jody Watley. In 1995, an archival song from The Beatles with that title was released on their Anthology 2 compilation.
• In 2023, a movie loosely based on this song called Mary J. Blige's Real Love aired on Lifetime as part of a partnership between the network and her production company, Blue Butterfly. It tells the story of an 18-year-old girl who navigates a complicated relationship with a guy who wins her heart. The movie was followed a week later by Mary J. Blige's Strength Of A Woman, which picks up the story 15 years later. That one is based on Blige's 2017 song.
• New York-based independent Tuff City Records brought legal action against Universal Music Publishing in 2024, claiming "Real Love" includes an unapproved sample of the 1972 Honey Drippers track "Impeach The President." It's not clear why it took Tuff City more than three decades to go legal over the issue.
  
  The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge as of September 23, 2025. The court found that the two songs were not substantially similar, and a lay listener would not perceive them as related.