Victoria Monét Proves Why She’s a Triple Threat: ‘I Feel Like It’s Definitely Uphill Right Now’

variety.com:

Steven J. Horowitz Senior Music Writer Victoria Monét has long been considered an underdog. As far back as 2009, when she first chased her dreams of becoming a musician from Sacramento to Los Angeles, she’s spent much of her time out of the spotlight and confined to album liner notes as a songwriter, lending her pen to Ariana Grande and Chloe x Halle.

All the while, she never lost sight of her goals as a solo artist, releasing a series of EPs that hinted at R&B greatness but never truly resonated with listeners. “I feel like I was sometimes only relevant to people according to my proximity to another artist, and that can be disheartening when you see so much more for yourself,” explains the 34-year-old. “I wanted to be doing what I love happily and be able to sustain it and change the narrative in people’s minds that I am beneath where I should be.

But it’s definitely nice to level that out and be right where I’m supposed to be.” That would be at the forefront of R&B, a mountain she’s steadily climbed for well over a decade.

With the release of her debut full-length “Jaguar II” in August, Monét was suddenly catapulted into solo stardom on the back of the cooly confident single “On My Mama,” a rattling head-nodder that became her first single as a headliner to hit number one on a Billboard chart, with quotables for days (i.e. “I’m so deep in my bag like a grandma with a peppermint”).