Victoria Monét may feel like a relatively new name to some music listeners, but she is far from new to the music business. Before “On My Mama” became the song everybody seemed to know, before the Grammys and before she was commanding her own stage, Monét spent years writing music for other artists and quietly building the career that would eventually put her name on the marquee.
Now, at 37, the three-time Grammy winner is stepping into her next chapter with Frequency of Love, a 22-track album arriving October 2. The project follows 2023’s Jaguar II, the album that changed the trajectory of her career and helped earn Monét three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist and Best R&B Album.
For anybody wondering how an artist with years in the business could win Best New Artist, that’s part of what makes Monét’s story interesting. She wasn’t new. A much larger audience was simply beginning to discover her.
Before becoming a star in her own right, Monét built an impressive résumé as a songwriter, working with artists including Ariana Grande, Chloe x Halle, BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez. She spent years helping create music for other voices while developing her own sound behind the scenes.
Then came Jaguar II and “On My Mama,” and the spotlight finally caught up with the work.
Three years later, Monét isn’t trying to recreate that moment. Frequency of Love sounds like an artist interested in moving forward. The album moves through R&B, house, slow jams and influences from the music many of us grew up listening to. There are touches of ’90s R&B throughout the project, including musical references to songs associated with Brandy and Kenny Lattimore.
The guest list is impressive too. SZA, Bruno Mars, Bryson Tiller, Lucky Daye, Leon Thomas and Chlöe are among the artists joining Monét on the album. Her daughter Hazel also appears, making motherhood part of the music rather than something that exists outside of her career.
Love is the thread connecting much of the project, but Monét isn’t limiting that conversation to romance. She’s exploring relationships, dating, motherhood, self-love and the way her understanding of love has changed as her life has changed.
That maturity may be one of the most interesting things about this era.
The music industry moves quickly, especially now. Artists can feel pressure to release something constantly just to keep audiences paying attention. Monét took three years between albums and has been clear that she needed to live enough life to have something meaningful to bring back to the studio.
She also used that time to explore another passion. While her music career was growing, Monét enrolled at the Institute of Culinary Education and graduated at the top of her class. For someone who had finally reached a level of professional recognition she had spent years working toward, choosing to become a student again says something about how she views success.
Music is what she does, but apparently it doesn’t have to be everything she is.
That perspective feels particularly relevant for Black women, who are so often celebrated for how much we can carry, how hard we can work and how many things we can accomplish at once. Monét’s approach suggests there is also value in having interests that don’t need to become a business, a brand or another accomplishment to monetize.
Of course, she isn’t slowing down completely. Frequency of Love includes singles such as “Let Me,” “Reach Out” and “Juicy,” and later this month Monét will begin a 27-city North American tour supporting the album.
But this doesn’t feel like an artist desperately trying to hold onto a breakthrough.
It feels like a woman who worked a long time to get here and now has enough confidence to decide what she wants “here” to look like.
There is something refreshing about that, particularly in R&B, where Black women have given us some of our most enduring music while navigating an industry that can be unforgiving about age, image and how quickly the next hit arrives.
Victoria Monét’s career is a reminder that everybody’s timeline doesn’t look the same. Sometimes the world discovers you at 20. Sometimes you’ve been doing the work for years before the rest of us finally learn your name.
Either way, when your moment comes, you get to decide what you do with it.
With Frequency of Love, Victoria Monét seems less interested in proving that she belongs in the spotlight and more interested in enjoying what she worked so long to reach.
