Next month, when Victoria Monét joins Bruno Mars for the European leg of his ‘The Romantic’ stadium tour, it will feel like a full-circle moment. Back in 2013, when she signed her first solo deal with Atlantic Records, Mars was a labelmate and “guiding light”. Monét had previously been a member of Purple Reign, a girl band assembled by super-producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins (Destiny’s Child, Michael Jackson), but they were dropped before they could release any music. Thwarted once, Monét was ready to hustle.
READ MORE: Bruno Mars – ‘The Romantic’ review: more soulful bops from pop’s silver-tongued loverman
“I noticed Bruno had a song with B.o.B [2009’s ‘Nothin’ On You’] that gained a lot of success, and then right after he was able to put out solo records that became successful,” Monét recalls, speaking on Zoom from her home in LA. Though the camera’s off, she’s still candid, especially as the interview progresses. “It felt like [singing] a hook was a great launchpad for a solo career, so I was like, ‘I’m gonna be like Bruno,’” she continues. This led to her productive stint as a “hook girl” for rappers including Nas (‘You Wouldn’t Understand’), Meek Mill (‘Live On Tonight’) and B.o.B himself (‘Lean On Me’).
Monét also honed her songwriting chops across multiple albums by Ariana Grande, with whom she wrote two sleek pop-R&B chart-toppers: 2017’s ‘Thank U, Next’ and 2018’s ‘7 Rings’. In 2019, she turbocharged her solo career by teaming with Grande on ‘Monopoly’, a witty trap bop on which the two women toast their success, friendship and Monét’s bisexuality (“I swerve both ways – dichotomy“). It became the then-rising star’s first Billboard Hot 100 hit as lead artist and now has over 200million Spotify streams.
As Monét’s trajectory steepened, Mars remained a lodestar. When she released a live performance video for ‘Jaguar’, the percolating title track of her 2020 breakthrough EP, she billed it as an “audition” to open for Silk Sonic, Mars’ retro-leaning collaboration with Anderson .Paak. “I just felt like musically we were adjacent, especially [because of] D’Mile, who did my project and Silk Sonic’s,” she recalls. “And I felt like I could have been in Silk Sonic low-key. Like, if there was a female in the group, I could be the Fergie.”
So, now that she’s preparing to open for Mars at massive venues including London’s iconic Wembley Stadium, with .Paak also on the bill under his pseudonym DJ Pee .Wee, it feels like a “sacred” moment that Monét “manifested”. Once a hustler, always a hustler.
Of course, much has changed for Monét since she petitioned for a Silk Sonic support slot. Released in August 2023, her debut album ‘Jaguar II’ was a silky, sophisticated collection on which she and D’Mile draped satin-light melodies around warm, gauzy arrangements of flutes, trumpets and horns. Monét showed her reverence for R&B’s past by recruiting Earth, Wind & Fire for the shimmering, string-driven ballad ‘Hollywood’, which also featured a cameo from her daughter Hazell, who was just two at the time.
Elsewhere, on the sultry single ‘On My Mama’, she showed off her flair for writing smart, self-affirming lyrics. “I’m so deep in my bag like a grandma with a peppermint,” she sings over a beautifully fluid groove. Monét’s rise was crystallised a year later when she won a hat trick of Grammys – for Best R&B Album, Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and Best New Artist.
Today, Monét describes her awards success as a “paradigm shift” that gave her a cruel taste of tall poppy syndrome. “Something interesting happened,” she says, “where my social media [comments] went from ‘we love you, you’re the underdog’, to, like, ‘Why does she get the Grammy? She’s too old, she’s not even a new artist.’” Monét was only 34 at the time, but her 15 years of climbing the industry ladder gave her perspective. “I was like, ‘Of course this happened to you, because you worked really hard and just didn’t stop,’” she recalls.
“People think I’m seated with my legs crossed, holding a cocktail. But I’ve been working really, really hard”
Gripes from ageist haters also galvanised her long-term ambition. “Even though I showed why I deserved the Grammy before, I also have to show why I deserve it after – for the people who didn’t think it should be mine,” she says. She made a conscious decision to put some clear water between ‘Jaguar II’, which she expanded in 2024 with a deluxe edition and the festive spin-off ‘A Jaguar II Christmas: The Orchestral Arrangements’, and her currently untitled second album era.
“There’s something nice about going against the grain and not putting something out so fast,” she explains, “because you may be doing it out of spite, or putting something out that feels unnatural to you, just based on what the world is expecting of you as an artist. I feel completely like this is a new chapter. I’ve untethered myself from that [‘Jaguar II’] frequency.”
So, in February of this year, Monét soft-launched her second album era with the aromatic slow jam ‘Let Me’, her first single as lead artist in 18 months. “I wanted to release it around Valentine’s Day because one of the album’s themes is love,” she says. “One way you can show unwavering love is to let people in. Another is by allowing people to feel safe enough to let you in.” Monét says ‘Let Me’ is “special” because of its luxuriant five-minute runtime, which makes it “reminiscent of older R&B songs that weren’t just quick cuts for TikTok”.
When the new record eventually drops, fans will be given more insight into Monét’s personal life via an as-yet-untitled song she describes as “very anthemic”. “It’s about my relationship status, pretty much, [having] the freedom to explore and meet new people guilt-free,” she says. Though Monét’s decision not to rush her new album rollout is an artistic one, she admits she did sometimes feel “a bit guilty for quote-unquote ‘going away’”.
That ‘quote-unquote’ references external perceptions of her schedule. “I’ve been busier than ever, just not visibly posting [about it],” she says. “People think I’m seated with my legs crossed, holding a cocktail. But I’ve been working really, really hard. I’ve been in culinary school, so my days have started at 4am with workouts before school: a combination of tai chi, weight training, Qigong and boxing.” On top of this, Monét has been “finishing an album, taking vocal lessons and doing all the things artists have to do, on top of being a mom”.
Monét’s gastronomic side hustle is a serious business. On May 4, she posted on Instagram that she had graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE), which has launched the careers of 20,000 hospitality professionals since 1975. She says her team told her she was “nuts” to become a trained chef while making an album, but adds with cool conviction: “I needed to change my creative palette and connect it back to things that I don’t get paid for. I needed to find value in myself, outside of what the world sees as valuable.”
Today, even with her early start and a high-profile support slot on the horizon, Monét radiates calmness. “It definitely feels like I’ve found a healthy balance – an equilibrium,” she says. “This last year, I’ve been shedding everything that I needed to shed spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. Now I’m coming out with this next album, which feels like my best work so far. I’ve created an ecosystem where one [creative] thing supports the other.”
Victoria Monét will support Bruno Mars on tour across the UK and Europe from June 18. New music from her is expected to drop later this year.
The post How Victoria Monét found the creative balance to make her best music yet appeared first on NME.
