Victoria Monét on Her ‘Uphill Battle’ to Earning ‘My Own Reputation’

When Victoria Monét looked in the mirror five years ago, she saw a successful songwriter whose growing list of estimable credits included co-writes on two of Ariana Grande’s biggest hits, “Thank U, Next” and “7 Rings.” What Monét, then 30, didn’t see was a successful solo artist — a goal she had been tirelessly pursuing since 2009.

“It was a very difficult, uphill battle trying to get people to understand there’s a duality to me, that my relevance wasn’t only based on my proximity to somebody else,” Monét recalls. “Interview after interview, questions were snuck in about the artists I worked with. I just wanted to be a stand-alone artist with my own reputation.”

Monét’s long-held dream finally became reality with the 2023 release of her RCA debut studio album, Jaguar II. Her breakthrough single, “On My Mama,” and two earlier album singles, “Smoke” (with Lucky Daye) and “Party Girls” (with Buju Banton), created what she calls a “snowball effect” — and validated her solo artistry, not only in terms of chart position, different interview questions and her first headlining tour, but also in the form of golden hardware.

At the Grammys in February, Monét — who entered with seven nominations, including record of the year and best R&B song — won best new artist, as well as the statuettes for best R&B album and best engineered album, non-classical. Her best traditional R&B performance nod — for “Hollywood,” featuring Earth, Wind & Fire and her toddler daughter, Hazel Monét — was record-breaking in its own right, making Hazel the youngest-ever Grammy nominee.

But Monét’s three wins — her first triumphs after three prior nods for her work with Grande and R&B duo Chloe x Halle — represent another pivotal moment for the Atlanta-born, Sacramento, Calif.-raised singer-songwriter, who began pursuing a solo career when she moved to Los Angeles in 2009 to audition for a girl group under development by Grammy-winning producer Rodney Jerkins. Monét got the job and the group signed a Motown contract, though it was later dropped without releasing any music.

That setback, however, yielded the start of a friendship with future Grammy- and Academy Award-winning songwriter-producer D’Mile and pushed Monét to focus on the songwriting she had dabbled in while growing up in Sacramento. Shouting out D’Mile as a key supporter and mentor (“He let me and the girl group live in his place”), Monét worked with him on music she had begun recording on the side as an independent artist while she racked up writing credits with acts such as Travis Scott, Blackpink, Fifth Harmony and fellow rising R&B singer and new Grammy winner Coco Jones.

“It’s very hard to ask somebody to invest their time when you don’t have a label to push it through, a production or video budget,” Monét says. “But D’Mile was like, ‘I don’t care about that. I think you’re talented and love your voice … We got this.’ ”

Monét, who didn’t have a manager at that time (“Even when I opened for Ariana on tour in 2016, I did hotel bookings and routing”), found another kindred spirit when she met manager Rachelle Jean-Louis in 2018. “She has been my ride-or-die,” Monét says. “She saw things when no one else saw them.”

Jean-Louis, a former label executive and music supervisor, first crossed paths with Monét while working as the latter, placing Monét’s collaboration with RCA artist Lucky Daye, “Little More Time,” on HBO’s Insecure. “We’re mirrors of each other,” Jean-Louis says. “We both love music, are hard workers and passionate about what we do. Victoria’s melodies and the layering of her vocals reminded me a lot of early Marvin [Gaye] and Janet [Jackson], which was something I hadn’t heard currently at that time. And then hearing she wrote all of her songs … that’s a rare form of artistry that I’ve always admired.”

Music fans got their first taste of Monét’s solo work through four EPs she released between 2014 and 2018. While none of those projects charted, they featured Monét’s ’70s-influenced modern soul that began generating word-of-mouth buzz for the indie artist. But on her Jaguar EP, released in August 2020, the singer emphasized another side of herself.

“I had to learn how to survive,” Monét said during a Grammy Museum Q&A in December when comparing the music industry to a jungle. “The jaguar symbolized my journey up to that point.”

Her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist was in 2019, when “Monopoly,” a song she co-wrote and was featured on with Grande, cracked the chart at No. 69. The week before, Monét had reached No. 16 on the Emerging ­Artists list.

With the August 2023 release of sequel Jaguar II, which delivers a sonically mesmerizing mix of ’70s retro soul, dancehall and Southern rap — and, like Jaguar, was executive-produced by Monét, D’Mile and Jean-Louis — Monét hit her stride. The album debuted at No. 6 on Top R&B Albums and No. 22 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Meanwhile, “On My Mama,” which samples Texas rapper Chalie Boy’s 2009 track, “I Look Good,” peaked at No. 4 on Hot R&B Songs, while spending 24 consecutive weeks in the top 10. Since the first tracking week of 2023 (from Dec. 29, 2022, to Feb. 1, 2024), Monét’s songs as an artist have generated 342.6 million official on-demand streams, according to Luminate.

“Because songwriters are writing for other artists, it’s really easy to hear their songs but think of the artist they wrote for instead,” Jean-Louis says. “But with the music that Victoria’s making, you can’t do that. The only person you hear when you listen to Victoria Monét’s music is her.”

With Jean-Louis and a predominately female core team handling both her business and creative plus strong support from RCA (“It has been a real joy to collaborate with a [label] team that really sees me; RCA changed that narrative for me”) — the newly minted three-time Grammy winner is looking ahead to festival performances at Coachella and Governors Ball, along with the deluxe version of Jaguar II.

But, reflecting on her hard work, setbacks and wins thus far, Monét says it all makes her cherish her recognition as Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music Rising Star even more.

“I prefer it this way rather than [achieving] fame quickly or being given to me on a silver platter,” she explains. “I know I have a great foundation and legs to stand on because everything I built was brick by brick. A career takes an excellent amount of patience.”

This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.

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