Monica (singer)

Monica Denise Arnold (formerly Brown; born October 24, 1980), best known mononymously as Monica, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, she began performing as a child and joined a traveling gospel choir by the age of ten. Monica signed with record producer Dallas Austin's label Rowdy Records in 1993, and gained prominence following the release of her debut studio album, Miss Thang (1995). Her follow-up albums were met with continued success; her second, The Boy Is Mine (1998) remains her best-selling album and spawned three Billboard Hot 100-number one singles: "The Boy Is Mine" (with Brandy), "The First Night " and "Angel of Mine".

She then parted ways with Arista and Rowdy Records in favor of Clive Davis's J Records upon the label's launch in 2000. Her Japan-exclusive third album, All Eyez on Me (2002), was met with a steep critical and commercial decline, although its partial re-issue, After the Storm (2003), served as her fourth album and became her first to debut atop the US Billboard 200. Its lead single, "So Gone", peaked at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Her fifth and sixth albums, The Makings of Me (2006) and Still Standing (2010), debuted at numbers eight and two on the Billboard 200, respectively; the latter received two Grammy Award nominations. Her seventh, New Life (2012) debuted at number four on the chart despite unfavorable critical response; her eighth album, Code Red (2015) marked her final release with RCA.

Monica's popularity translated into an acting career, with television roles in Living Single (1996), Felicity (2001), and American Dreams (2003), and film roles including Boys and Girls (2000), Love Song (2000), and Pastor Brown (2009). In 2008, she served as an advisor for the NBC competition series The Voice. The recording of her 2008 single, "Still Standing" (featuring Ludacris) along with her personal life resulted in her receiving a reality television series, Monica: Still Standing on BET.

Monica has sold over 25 million records worldwide, with more than five million of those in the United States alone. In 2000, Billboard ranked her tenth its list of the Top Female Solo Artists of the 1990s. In 2010, the magazine listed her 24th on its list of the Top 50 R&B and Hip-Hop Artists of the past 25 years. A five-time nominee, she won Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Boy Is Mine" at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards. Her other accolades include a Billboard Music Video Award, a BET Award, and a Soul Train Music Award. In 2009, she received the Lady of Soul Honor.

Monica Denise Arnold was born in College Park, Georgia, the only daughter of Marilyn Best, a Delta Air Lines customer service representative and former church singer, and M.C. "Billy" Arnold Jr, who was a mechanic for an Atlanta freight company. Arnold's mother is of African American descent and her father is African American, Indian and Irish, as she stated in an interview with Wendy Williams in the year 2000; " My Grandfather was Irish & Black, and my Grandmother was entirely Indian, as my father has Blonde hair & blue eyes." . She has a younger brother, Montez (born in 1983), and a half brother, Jermond Grant, on her father's side. Monica is also a cousin of record producer Polow da Don, and is related to rapper Ludacris through her mother's second marriage to Reverend Edward Best, a Methodist minister.

At the age of 2, Monica followed in her mother's footsteps with regular performances at the Jones Hill Chapel United Methodist Church in Marilyn's hometown Newnan, Georgia. While growing up in the modest circumstances of a single-parent home after her parents' 1984 separation and 1987 divorce, Monica continued training herself in singing and became a frequent talent-show contestant, winning over 20 local singing competitions throughout her early teenage years. When she was 10 years old, she became the youngest member of "Charles Thompson and the Majestics", a traveling 12-person gospel choir. She attended North Clayton High School with rapper 2 Chainz. She graduated from high school in 1997 at age 16, having skipped ahead scholastically by studying year-round with a private tutor.

In 1991, at the age of eleven, Monica was discovered by music producer Dallas Austin at the Center Stage auditorium in Atlanta, performing Whitney Houston 1986's "Greatest Love of All". Amazed by her voice, Dallas offered her a record deal with his label Rowdy Records, and consulted rapper Queen Latifah to work as Monica's first manager. Shortly afterwards Dallas and then staff producers Tim & Bob entered the studio with Monica to start writing and producing her debut Miss Thang, which was released in July 1995 and peaked at number 36 on the Billboard 200 (and number seven on the Top R&B Albums chart). To date the album has sold 1.5 million copies in the United States. By January 2000, it received triple platinum certification by the RIAA for three million units. The album yielded three singles, including her debut "Don't Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)", and its follow-up "Before You Walk Out of My Life", which made Monica the youngest artist to have two consecutive chart-topping songs on the U.S. Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart. Miss Thang earned Monica an American Music Award nomination for Favorite New Soul/R&B Artist. The video for "Don't Take It Personal", directed by Rich Murray, was nominated for a Billboard Award for best video by a new artist.

Following the album's success, Monica's mainstream success was boosted. Her 1997 song "For You I Will"—recorded for Space Jam: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture (1996)—became her next pop hit, peaking at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was written by Diane Warren. The following year, she was asked to team up with singer Brandy and producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins to record "The Boy Is Mine", the first single from both of their second albums. Released in May 1998, surrounding highly publicized rumors about a real-life catfight between both singers, the duet became both the biggest hit of the summer and the biggest hit of 1998 in general in America, spending thirteen weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It earned the pair a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" and garnered multi-platinum sales (to date, it remains as one of the top twenty most successful American singles in history based on Billboard chart success). Jermaine Dupri, David Foster and Austin consulted on the album The Boy Is Mine, which was released later that year and it eventually became Monica's biggest-selling album; selling over 2,016,000 copies. In June 2000, the album was certified triple platinum by the RIAA for three million shipped units. It yielded another two U.S. number-one hits with "The First Night" and "Angel of Mine", a cover of Eternal's 1997 single, as well as a remake of Richard Marx' "Right Here Waiting". Rolling Stone proclaimed it "closer to soul's source... harking back past hip-hop songbirds like Mary J. Blige and adult-contemporary sirens like Toni Braxton", while AllMusic called the album an "irresistible sounding [and] immaculately crafted musical backdrop [...] as good as mainstream urban R&B gets in 1998." Monica has also made guest appearances on several television shows such as Living Single (1996), Beverly Hills, 90210 (1997, 1999) and the Cartoon Network special Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak (2000).