Monica is coming. The R&B legend has announced that she’ll make her long-anticipated return on Friday, July 15, with a new song titled “Friends” featuring Ty Dolla $ign.
The acoustic-tinged song was mentioned in a previous interview, where she said Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Tasha Catour played a role in its creation.
Monica shared a taste of the romantic collaboration during her recent Tiny Desk (Home) concert. In a recent post, she offered an in-studio snippet of the song, which featured the official artwork (More on that later).
The new track is set to relaunch Monica’s forthcoming album campaign, which she started on the night of her Verzuz against fellow R&B fixture Brandy.
Monica introduced the Lil Baby-assisted, Neptunes-produced title track as the lead single of Trenches, originally titled Chapter 38. Its official music video would arrive sometime later in the year.
Even before she linked with Lil Baby, Monica forked out two other singles: “Me + You” and “Commitment.” The latter track, produced by Nova Wav, reached number one on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart in July 2019. It marked her first chart-topper in almost a decade and her fourth overall.
Monica, no longer under a major label, had plans to release Trenches in November 2020. However, after a few hiccups, some more personal than others, Monica decided to push the album back to the beginning of 2021. Still, the final product did not surface.
Of Trenches’ title, Monica told Volume West’s Lÿndsey Parker on SiriusXM, “I grew up, I saw a whole lot and I had to sift through what I needed as a woman to grow and be who I wanted to be. So when I speak about trenches it can be a place emotionally, or a place physically.”
She continued, “For us, when you grow up in the trenches, that means you know what it’s like to be without. That means you understand what trying to work your way out of a particular place feels like and you don’t take the opportunities for granted. But some people are in the trenches emotionally. When I was working on this album, I’ve never been in the trenches in a worst way.”
Last August, Monica confirmed she had finished recording Trenches, following the news that she was working on a country album with Brandi Carlile. She later disclosed more details on the latter album, including its title, Open Roads.
In the last few years, Monica has entered the studio with several artists, songwriters, and producers for Trenches, including Missy Elliott, Polow da Don, Tank, Felly The Voice, PJ Morton, Nova Wav, Yung Miami of City Girls, and many more. It’s uncertain how much of the material recorded with those mentioned collaborators will make the tracklist.
Trenches follows Monica’s 2015 album Code Red, released on RCA Records. The 14-track effort included the Lil Wayne-assisted track “Just Right for Me” and “Anchor,” which Rated R&B featured on its list of underrated Monica songs.
Since then, Monica has celebrated milestone anniversaries for other classics in her catalog, including Miss Thang and Still Standing, respectively. She also was honored as a Lady of Soul at the 2020 Soul Train Awards.
Further, Monica still has a deal on the table for Mo Talk, an Apple Music radio show.
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