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Platinum-selling artist Monica is a certified Georgia peach who first injected her brand of Southern hospitality with her debut, "Miss Thang," which dropped about 14 years ago. Since then, the music industry has changed and, true to form, Monica is changing with it. At Luckie Lounge, hours before its infamous Wednesday night party, aptly titled “The Investment Club” Monica was on hand to unveil her fabulous return to the music game: the one-hour Peachtree TV special, “The Single: Monica,” a behind-the-scenes peek into the first single from her fifth album, “Lessons Learned.”
Dressed very classically diva in a Diane Von Furstenburg black top, coordinated with a red and black D&G skirt, polished with cute, black Christian Louboutin pumps, Monica spoke to Metromix. Seated comfortably in a cabana, with a stunning Atlanta skyline as a backdrop, during an intense hot Atlanta night, Monica admitted her reluctance when Ryan Glover, Entertainment Consultant, Turner Entertainment Networks, and James DuBose, the reality show maestro who heads DuBose Entertainment, first approached her. “I was very hesitant in the beginning,” she stressed, “because I didn’t want to do anything that would exploit the way maybe me and my family lived or different things we believe in or like to do.”
Sitting down with Glover, whom she’d crossed paths with in the music industry, and DuBose, who produced “The Way It Is,” one of BET’s highest rated programs starring Keyshia Cole, a good friend of Monica’s who rolled through Luckie Lounge to lend her support, won her over. “Once I sat down with them and just came to the realization that they had families and just wanted to show people what it was like to be on the other side of the music industry but still have to balance a family life that was as intense as mine is with a six-month old, a three-year old, my fiancé [Rocko, “Umma Do Me”] and his career. Once we had that one conversation,” explained Monica, “it was done.”
As beloved as Monica is, sales from her last album were flat. “With the last record “The Makings of Me", the first song they put out was not a good representation of the whole body of work,” admitted Monica, “and, at this point, in a recession, people don’t go and buy CDs for one song. There are a few exceptions to the rule but, ultimately, you have to put your best foot forward from the beginning.”
It’s the responsibility she feels to her fans that really prompted Monica to accept the Peachtree TV challenge. “I really felt that this (was my) chance to step up and be responsible for what I gave to my fans,” she emphasized. “So, that is why you hear the slogan "One Artist. One Song. One Last Chance To Be Number One," it’s worded that way because that’s how intense I feel about making sure that this time, all of it is right.”
Tune in to Peachtree TV, on August 5 at 10 p.m. to catch Monica’s big night and just, maybe, it will become a full-blown reality series.
