That's the sign of an honest, true singer, that's the kind of singing I enjoy most. You can take off from the melody and give it your own spin. "I could always sing how I felt, because I love what the song says and the melody isn't cluttered with a lot of words. "That song always gave me freedom," Monica says. She sang the same song every night, "The Greatest Love of All" by her idol Whitney Houston, and she won more often than not. Monica was only 11 when she started entering local talent contests.
When everyone around you sings the same way, you can't help but absorb it." "The way that I sing is not something I was taught I always sang with feeling because that's the way I sang in church - from the bottom of my heart. "Church built my entire style," Monica says. Also in the group were the sisters LaTocha and Tamika Scott, who later became the core of the hit R&B group, Xscape. She grew up singing in the nearby Jones Chapel United Methodist Church, and by age 10 she was singing with the touring group Charles Thompson and the Majestics. She was born Monica Arnold in College Park, Ga., just outside Atlanta. But, then again, Whitney comes from Newark and she has more soul than the whole industry put together." If you go to Georgia, North Carolina, anywhere like that, they have a lot of soul. If you go to New Orleans, you hear people sing with extreme feeling. "Plus, the South has a different way of singing. If I didn't experience it, I saw my mother experience it, and that makes my records very realistic. I like to sing about things that I experience, and I sing them with a lot of feeling. What are those differences in style? "I would never presume to categorize her style. We each have our own career, our own style." We were two young, black women doing positive things, and they just harped on this imaginary fight. "She was in the North and I was in the South, and we never saw each other except at awards shows. "The strangest thing is they never could see us together," complains an exasperated Monica. But that hasn't stopped the media and Internet forums from speculating about the rivalry. Monica, who appears with 98 Degrees, Tatyana Ali, No Authority and EYC as part of the All That Music & More Festival on Saturday at the Nissan Pavilion, denies that any quarrel has ever existed. One challenge to her self-control has been her alleged feud with Brandy. I've tried to maintain that over the past few years." I've learned not to let other people make me react to them and the things they do. That's an area I always had a problem with my temper was a little bad.
No matter what the situation was, she would always approach it with a sense of calmness. "The one thing I try to imitate is her self-control. A lot of girls grow apart from their mothers, but we're so much alike and we've always been so close that I couldn't imagine it any other way. I really pattern myself around a lotof things she does and a lot of ways she acts, and that seeps into my career. Being self-assured is something my mother has always been. "That's just part of my character," she explains, "it's not something I practiced. Addressing a rival or a pushy date, she lays down the law - not with hysterical anger or desperate pleading but with the confidence of someone who expects to get her way. Whether it's her breakthrough single, 1995's "Don't Take It Personal," her chart-topping duet with fellow teenager Brandy, "The Boy Is Mine," or the follow-up hit, "The First Night," Monica comes across as a young woman who knows just what she wants. She doesn't just hit the notes she fills them with her personality. The 18-year-old R&B star is already an accomplished singer.
MONICA IS MORE than just a face, more than just a voice.