Victoria Monét is ready to take control on 'Jaguar II' - Los Angeles Times (original) (raw)
“I have it in my journal that I want to win 16 Grammys,” says Victoria Monét.
(Justin J Wee / For The Times)
Victoria Monét is curled deep into a tattered sofa at a Van Nuys rehearsal studio, a needle jabbed into her forearm.
“This’ll make your skin glow,” a nurse tells the 34-year-old R&B singer, as she affixes an IV drip of vitamins and supplements.
“I’m taking these because I have a daughter and she’s in preschool,” says Monét. “Whatever sicknesses at that school come in, I just like to have an extra layer to protect me.”
Monét has good reason to fend off illness right now. The L.A.-based singer-songwriter, who released her debut LP, “Jaguar II,” after a long career writing hits for Ariana Grande, Blackpink and others, is about to fly east to begin her first solo headline tour.
The deftly written “Jaguar II,” released in August, could finally secure Monét a place in the pop-R&B firmament that she helped craft for so many others.
“I feel like I’ve had this goal for way longer than I’ve had it as a songwriter,” Monét says of her Grammy prospects as an artist. “I have it in my journal that I want to win 16 Grammys — I think that was the number Kanye had at the time that I wrote it. Not to compare accolades, but it’s always different coming from people in music who actually know what it takes.”
If anyone knows exactly what it takes to survive and cut your own path in pop today, it’s Monét. Atlanta-born and Sacramento-raised, she came to L.A. in 2009 to try her hand as an artist and signed to Atlantic in 2014.
But she soon found that dream overshadowed by her songwriting prowess. Monét’s work on Grande’s “Thank U, Next,” Blackpink and Selena Gomez’s “Ice Cream” and Chloe x Halle’s “Do It” made her a kind of star among pop and R&B aficionados — a name you called when you need nimble, intricate verses and a wry feminine flourish in the lyrics.
As she rounded her 30s and had daughter Hazel with her boyfriend, fitness trainer and model John Gaines, she did wonder if her career might need recalibrating. She found a fresh well of inspiration with 2020’s “Jaguar,” a slinky, sultry EP intended to kick off a trilogy updating the ’70s soul vibes of her youth, with enticing diversions into dub, house and funk. It piqued new interest in her own voice.
On “Jaguar II,” she leaned into the intergenerational aspects of her influences. There are guest appearances from like-minded crooner Lucky Daye, electronic star Kaytranada and reggae legend Buju Banton. Most memorably, on “Hollywood,” she paired a cameo from lifelong favorites Earth, Wind & Fire with a sample of her daughter’s first laugh.
“My grandmother was the reason I love Earth, Wind & Fire, and she died right before I moved to L.A.,” says Monét. “It feels like a full-circle thing to have the people who influenced the album be on it, and also have my daughter and my grandma’s soul there.”
Monét’s songwriting feels apropos to this grown-and-sexy era of her life. “Smoke” and “Cadillac (A Pimp’s Anthem)” glow with old-school reverence and snappy confidence. But she wrote the alluring “On My Mama” during an incongruously dark time.
“I actually wrote it like eight weeks after my daughter was born,” she says. “It was the first song I wrote after giving birth and I was like, ‘Oh, I can’t write about breastfeeding. Maybe I can’t write anymore.’ I didn’t feel hot and sexy. I was going through postpartum depression, actually. I really had to step outside of my own feelings, and write something that I needed to hear for myself.”
While “Jaguar II” peaked at No. 60 on the Billboard 200, Monét has a rare combination of being both a revelation as a solo artist and deeply respected by the Grammy voting bloc as a writer. She’d been previously nominated for record of the year for co-writing Grande’s “7 Rings” and for album of the year for “Thank U, Next.” Similar modern-yet-vintage acts like Silk Sonic, H.E.R. and Lizzo took home big prizes recently; multiple Grammy nominations, including for best new artist, are within reach.
“She put in the work. I don’t want to jinx myself or call it out too soon, but I feel like there’s a good chance for a Grammy,” says Dernst “D’Mile” Emile II, who co-wrote and produced nearly every track on “Jaguar II.”
“When you step back and take your time with an album, you end up with something you’re really proud of,” says Victoria Monét.
D’Mile knows about pop-R&B acts’ Grammy prospects — he won a song of the year trophy in 2021 for H.E.R.’s “I Can’t Breathe” and song and record of the year for Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” in 2022. He’s worked with Monét for nearly her entire career (Monét even used to live in his apartment in North Hollywood), and he’s overjoyed that she’s finally found her own audience.
“When you go in as a writer for someone else, you tend to get into their world and write about what relates to them,” says D’Mile. “With her own work, she has more control, a better idea of who she is, what she wants to sound like and talk about.”
Monét is still navigating the shoals of almost-stardom. After fans clamored for her to perform at September’s MTV VMAs (she claims she was turned down for a slot), she posted on social media, “I see your advocation for me to have performed tonight and I’m so grateful to you!! Sincerely! My team was told it is ‘too early in my story’ for that opportunity so we will keep working!”
For an artist who has seen and done it all in writing rooms and recording studios across L.A., having her own stan army is a new phenomenon.
“There’s a lot of pressure to feed that beast,” says Monét. “But when you step back and take your time with an album, you end up with something you’re really proud of.”