It's Your Motherf**kin' Moment
Thoughts on Victoria Monét & perserverance.
I have a confession to make: I'm atrociously late to the Victoria Monét train. Just last week, I wrote about my current music rut in the January Brain Dump (alongside my thoughts on Nicki Minaj’s unfortunate affliction with Blair Waldorf Syndrome). Thankfully, lovely Brain Rot reader Drea reached out to share some faves, including Victoria Monét. I’ve been vaguely aware of her for years, and of course I came across her viral hit “On My Mama,” but I hadn’t listened to any of her projects in full – and wow, how embarrassing for me! Her EP Jaguar and the accompanying debut album Jaguar II are sublime, making me a fast fan, so naturally I had to do a Wikipedia stalk to learn everything about her.
I was gobsmacked to find out that Monét is 34, turning 35 this year (and is a fellow Taurus icon 😌). Let me be clear: 34 is young, but it’s also firmly in grown-ass woman territory. It’s a far cry away from the teen queens and early 20-somethings that are typically heralded as breakout stars and achieve the kind of viral darling status Monét’s had in the last year. Personally, I had her pegged around 26 or 27 — in part because she looks phenomenal — but also, I have to admit, because some of the societal messaging that it’s “too late” to make it big after thirty still lingers in my subconscious, despite all the work I’ve done to unlearn it.
Monét started making music in 2010, gaining a foothold in the industry writing songs for other people, most notably her frequent collaborator Ariana Grande. Thirteen years later, she finally dropped her debut studio album to great acclaim after releasing six EPs in seven years. Now, she’s nominated for seven awards at tonight’s Grammys, including Record of the Year for “On My Mama” and Best New Artist — after earning cosigns from legends like Janet Jackson and Anita Baker (Baker’s approval is something Monét manifested on Twitter...incredible representation for cosmic girlies everywhere!). I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.
Imagine if she’d given up just a year prior, frustrated with the grind of producing a project as an independent artist? Or when she was making Jaguar, where she had no budget to even pay producers upfront?1 Or when she was pregnant with her two-year-old daughter Hazel, listening to the fear others projected onto her about how having a child might stall her career?2 (Hazel recently made history as the youngest ever Grammy nominee for her “feature” on Monét’s track “Hollywood.” Nepo baby activities, literally – but I’m not mad at it. Get those royalties for your baby, girl!) If she’d let any of these complications stop her, she wouldn’t be where she is now, riding a wave of breakout success that’s yet to crest.
It’s probably no surprise to you that Monét says she thought about quitting the industry several times – who wouldn’t have, after over a decade of grinding? But she didn’t, realizing that no energy is wasted, and every investment in her career was only bringing her closer to where she wanted to go. Every project that stalls and doesn’t go anywhere, or doesn’t get you the success you thought it would, is only refining your instincts, making you sharper and better. Jaguar II is so excellent because it shines like something that’s been polished, the result of a mature artist who’s refined her craft over time and is confident in her abilities.
I feel like it’s trite to say, “never give up” – but that’s it, isn’t it? You have to move like your breakthrough is just around the corner, because for all you know, it is. When you’re chasing a dream, you already know what will happen if you put a stop sign in your own way and quit. What’s still unknown is what will happen if you don’t. As with most things, James Baldwin said it best: “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.”3 The people who achieve aren’t necessarily the best. They are the ones who kept going. You simply have to keep going. I simply have to keep going. We have to endure, persist, and persevere because what is the alternative? Resigning ourselves to regret? Living a consolation prize life, consumed by “what ifs”? Or worse yet, succumbing to bitterness, knowing that there’s no one to blame but ourselves for giving up.
This idea is so intolerant to me that I grimaced just writing that sentence. I can’t do that. I shan’t do that. And so I will keep going, if only to secure Future Lola’s closet full of archive Versace. I hope the idea of living anything other than the exact life you want fills you with a similar level of revulsion, because it should. As far as we know, we only do this life thing once – and I’ll be damned if I don’t spend it exactly how I want to.
In “Moment,” the opening track in Monét ’s Jaguar EP, she sings, “Life is but a dream that you manifested slowly/so fuck a fantasy, this your motherfuckin’ moment.” I mean – what is there to say? Keep going. This is your moment.
That’s all from me this week! Happy February and Black History Month (though every year is Black History Year in my home.) I’m tossing around a couple ideas for next week, but I’m leaning towards writing about the radical power of rest (probably because my ass needs a break). But then again I might write about something else entirely. Shout out to free will! Spend some time this week exercising yours.
See you next week,
Lola xx