carey began working on "butterfly" in january 1997. during the album's development in mid-1997 carey separated from her husband, music executive tommy mottola, who had guided her career since 1990. carey's increasing control over her own career had led to speculation in the press over the future of the couple, and they later divorced. throughout the development of the album, in a departure from her previous style, carey worked with various rappers and hip hop producers, including sean "puffy" combs, q-tip, missy elliott and jean claude oliver and samuel barnes from trackmasters. critics saw carey's new production team as a form of revenge on mottola and sony music. carey denied taking a radically new direction, and insisted that the musical style of her new album was of her own choosing. nevertheless, carey resented the control that sony, whose president was mottola, exercised over her music, preventing her making music about which she was passionate. in contrast, sony were concerned carey, their best-selling act, could jeopardize her future success through her actions.