FEATURE:
Revisiting...
Victoria Monét – JAGUAR (E.P.)
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RELEASED on…
PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Carter for PAPER
7th August, 2020, I wanted to revisit a terrific E.P. that deserves new investigation. The splendid Victoria Monét is still very much an artist bringing her incredible music to the masses. Touring and showing why she is one of the finest artists around, there will be many asking if we will get a debut album soon. I know we are getting the E.P., JAGUAR II later this year. I wanted to come to the first JAGUAR E.P. At a time when the pandemic was in full swing, there must have been this frustration when putting out an E.P. Having to promote from home and not able to tour the music, the incredible, original and intoxicating mix of R&B, Funk and Disco comes together in one of her best and most confident releases to date. I know Monét has suggested that JAGUAR will be a three-part project that that will lead to her debut album. The critical reaction to JAGUAR was hugely positive. I am not sure how many people in the U.K. know about Victoria Monét and whether they have heard JAGUAR. The Georgia-born artist has written songs for many huge artists such as Ariana Grande, and Nas. She is someone who has this phenomenal songwriting talent. I will get to a couple of reviews for the incredible JAGUAR. I want to start off with a few interviews where she promoted the E.P. The first, from PAPER explores the sound and songwriting through JAGUAR:
“Monét has also embraced the '70s through Jaguar's aesthetic: her music videos, promotional photos and outfits are tinted with warm browns and golds that match her honeyed vocals. On Zoom she's wearing a vintage style scarf over her pin-straight hair, like inspired by her grandmother's style in family photo albums. "So it's repeating what my elders did, but also trying to make it my own," she says. "I like the Black power and soul that the '70s exuded. I really wanted to capture that beauty."
Jaguar is defined by sexual power and a newfound self-assurance. "Moment," one of the EP's highlights, is a personal declaration of self-worth. "If you take the hook and make it a single phrase, I feel like it's so widely applicable. It's a moment to thrive, to change your life," Monét explains. "It's somewhat of a self-affirmation: you look in the mirror and it's like, 'Now is the time.' It brings this urgency. But also in a sexual light, it allows for a woman to treat themselves like a prize. It's like, 'Do you know what you're getting the chance to do right now?'"
PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Carter
Discussing the song triggers an unexpected rise in emotions in me. But Monét's presence is soothing, and she virtually wipes my tears as she notes the power of energy and manifestation. "When people are singing it, whether consciously or subconsciously," she assures, "you're starting to speak about what you want for your life. Be present in it and realize that this is where you belong."
With Jaguar, Monét "spent a little more time consistently writing for myself." When fans heard projects prior to Jaguar, she explains, "You would be hearing me having this writing camp for somebody else. I was trying to make a living, and my artist career wasn't as promising as being able to give yourself to someone who already has a fanbase and a label who can push the song to the masses." To invest in herself as an independent artist, "I really had to take a leap of faith."
Monét's sense of self-assurance has grown since coming out as bisexual in 2018. "Growing up being attracted to a woman, it felt like I was trained to think of it as such a sin," she says. "I tried to almost convert myself: 'Hmm, let's just pack that feeling to the back.' So being able to finally reveal that, and still feel so much support from other people who also feel the same way, meant so much to me”.
I am going to move to an interview from SPIN. For anyone who has not heard of Victoria Monét and is unfamiliar with JAGUAR, this is an artist and collection of songs that you need in your life. I wonder whether she is coming to the U.K. soon to perform. There will be a lot of anticipation ahead of JAGUAR II. I love the 2020 JAGUAR and feel that it one of the best releases from that year. I am excited to see what comes next from Monét. She did release another E.P., A JAGUAR Christmas: The Orchestral Arrangements, in December 2020:
“Despite her gentle tone during our interview, one sound pierces through her surroundings — just like the punchy horn sections on her August release, Jaguar. But the noise wasn’t musical — it was Monét’s instantaneous reaction after being compared to Off The Wall-era Quincy Jones. She squeals with excitement, as if the Grammy-winning songwriter hadn’t already been used as a critical reference point. But she should be used to it by now.
“He’s definitely been an inspiration,” Monét says of Jones. “The more that I learn, after watching his documentary, after meeting him and hearing his stories, I’m like, ‘You’re exactly the type of person and musician that I want to be.’”
Back in June 2019, before the world knew her ambitions for the soulful, ‘70s-influenced Jaguar, the 27-year-old singer met with Jones at his residence. There, she played the record’s title track for the acclaimed producer.
“He was singing another melody [over it], and I wish I could remember it,” Monét says, laughing. “I would’ve gone to the strings and asked my string player Peter Lee Johnson to do that, and just give him the production credit and be like, ‘My first Quincy collab.’”
While Jones’ name didn’t end up on Jaguar’s credits, his presence is unmistakable — especially in the aforementioned horns. She says Grande too was singing them back when she first heard the record. But that’s always been the norm for Monét.
PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Ziff
“Before I was able to access horn players, I would sing the horns myself and try to make my voice sound like them,” she recalls. “I try to give them those inflections and that specific sound because I can hear it so clearly in my head. When they play it, that’s when I know it’s like, ‘OK, I had this idea and was already seeing it before, but now when you’re playing, it brings it alive.’”
As she dove into the project’s creative process, Monét had her instrumentalists and producers (including D’Mile and SG Lewis) locked down. She also had a feature from Khalid on the disco-era slapper “Experience” in her back pocket. She just had to find a way to make everything mesh, which she says wasn’t ever a problem, or even a thought. Jaguar — which is only one part of a soon-to-be-completed project — just worked.
The record’s themes are consistent. When Monét isn’t singing about her sexual freedom on “Dive,” she’s getting “wild” on the album’s dance-y centerpiece “Jaguar.” And when she isn’t preaching self-love on workout anthem “Ass Like That,” she’s reminding herself on “Moment” that this instant of time belongs to her. Jaguar is a token of self-love from an artist whose previous two-part release, 2018’s Life After Love, found her searching for just that.
“I’m not really focused on the outcome,” Monét says of her creative process. “I’m focused more on how I feel right at that moment, what would make the best out of this day, this session, this instrumentation, these notes … Then listening back is when I get to sit back and say, ‘OK, this is the overarching theme of the project, and this is how she’s feeling”.
Prior to getting to some reviews, I want to move to an interview from the New York Post. Many artists release E.P.s projects or a trilogy. It is a nice way of building this arc and narrative. I wonder whether Victoria Monét is going to put her three E.P.s into an album, or whether she will take a few tracks from the E.P.s alongside newly-written tracks. It will be intriguing to see what she comes up with. There are few artists who have the same impact and talent as Monét. The evidence runs right through JAGUAR:
“With “Jaguar,” Monèt decided to explore a sound markedly different from her previous EPs. It was her work on the soundtrack for the third season of the hit HBO show “Insecure” that became the catalyst for “Jaguar”’s music — which pulls inspiration from ’60s and ’70s soul.
She was featured on two songs on the Insecure soundtrack, which were both produced by D’Mile. She co-wrote the airy duet “A Little More Time” with Lucky Daye, who sang with her on the track. She also sang the thumping “The Glow,” which was a cover of the Willie Hutch track from the 1985 soundtrack for the classic film “The Last Dragon.”
She tapped Daye for ”A Little More Time” because his voice reminded her of Marvin Gaye, a premiere Motown act during the ‘60s and ‘70s.
“When I was writing [“A Little More Time”] with Lucky, I was like we should feel that energy when he first comes on,” she says. “And then just being able to explore with D Mile and Lucky and do a break that has us bopping and doing riffs and scales, I feel like that became the foundation of my project.”
“The Glow” had a Motown connection, as well. Though the song came out in the mid ’80s, “The Last Dragon” soundtrack it was created for was released through Motown Records. Motown founder Barry Gordy also produced the film.
It was a call from “Insecure”’s music supervisor Kier Lehman that sealed Monèt’s spot on that track. “She asked me to do a cover of [“The Glow”] that was kind of a remix and uptempo,” she says. “So doing that allowed me to open my mind up to how my voice sounds on something that’s of that era.”
By the time she returned to the studio in 2018 to write the rest of her “Jaguar” project, Monèt decided to lean fully into the Motown-inspired sound, which she feels is also representative of her own free spirit as an artist.
“What I really love about Motown and the ’60s and ’70s influences is that soulful, psychedelic energy,” she says. “I wanted that to be felt in the music.”
Tracks like “Dive” and “Ass Like That” are reminiscent sonically of songs from groups like Shalamar, Dynasty, and The Sylvers, bands that enjoyed great success in the ’70s and early ’80s. However, Monèt directly references Earth, Wind & Fire as a band from that time period she wanted to embody with her sound. And she aimed to replicate elements of their productions on “Jaguar” by building in instrumental breaks that provide moments for the songs to breath both on track and on stage.
“I’m thinking about the band feel and leaving space for music to just exist without me singing,” she says. “I’m also thinking about how that transfers to stage so I can dance in those spaces or interact with fans and people. I was trying to think about the full spectrum and what I want to represent in music.”
Her journey into ’60s and ’70s soul resulted in Monèt pushing her artistry in an unexpected way.
“It felt like a new, fresh way to go while still being true to myself and juxtaposing my top line,” she says. “Because my top line is still very rap-singy. At times, I still have those Jackson harmonies. And I’m really inspired by the distant chords and trying to do these deeper melodic choices, even with harmonies. So it’s me being explorative, mixing all the things that inspire me together to create something new.”
Beyond the musical elements, “Jaguar”’s retro-soul theme is Monèt’s nod to innovative Black artistry that came out of those eras.
“The soul of the seventies and sixties, with Black people doing rock ‘n’ roll and Black people doing R&B. What we called R&B was a little bit more broad,” she says. “I kind of want to open back up the possibilities of what an R&B song has to sound like, or what a soul song is, or what a pop song is. Back then our R&B songs or our soul songs were pop music because they were popular. So I think I’m trying to open more doors and people’s eyes to that and trying to be creative and explore my roots deeper”
Her mission to celebrate Blackness can be seen in her creative direction, as well.
Her styling for the project and color schemes for her visuals have all featured rich earth tones like dusty blues, forest greens, and a variety of shades of brown. These hues were trendy in home decor, clothing, and even automobile paint shades of the ’60s and ’70s. But more than just an obvious reference to color trends of those time periods, Monèt credits this palette as being representative of her life-long affinity for nature and the outdoors”.
I am going to round off with reviews for the stunning JAGUAR. An E.P. that nobody should miss out on, it got a load of love from critics. The Line of Best Fit awarded it out 8/10 when they sat down to review it. There was a lot of affection for the E.P. and Monét from the U.K. press. She has a loyal and growing fanbase here:
“From the swirling heavenly flurries of opener "Moment", JAGUAR is a lesson on letting style and substance exist hand in hand; where a world can be all things all at once; your cake can be had and eaten.
The right balance of indulgence and escapism, yes, the world is still full of injustice, yes, there’s still a way to go, but if we forget about the luxuries a twenty-something minute project of R&B jams made to ignite the most basic of human instinct should be able to afford us, then they win.
Monét is the epitome of good things come to those who wait, a notion that sits with this bated breath world. With her debut coming way back in 2014, the six years between then and how has seen her embark on a further EP release, collaborations and writing for a plethora of pop titans.
Letting the rhythm ride shotgun with the experience of being a human, specifically a female, in a world wholly focused on remembering to live, Monét knows where to evoke and where to let the beat do its business. Laidback R&B, even when Monét is calling to a retro sound, comes so fresh it could be straight from a packet from the freezer.
Throughout the hypnotic horns of eponymous “Jaguar”, or the body owning “Ass Like That”, comes entrenched sexuality that embarks on a journey of positivity. What can appear as a vain remark, instead covers layers of male-dominated gaze, and once the tables have turned, Monét's power is all the more.
The appearance of flavours you’ll come to find in a few Ariana Grande moments appear simply because Monét is one of the voices helping pen the meteorite pop hits. It’s easy to hear the fluidity of the ideas, but Monét sparks electricity with her own, pure brand, unaffected by any of the Grande zeitgeist.
Of all the burgeoning pop stars in this languid world, Victoria Monét is one who is both the flint and the match. She knows how to craft a line to make you blink twice ("So fuck a fantasy, this your motherfuckin' moment) and follow its path; what sounds are going to create the silky smooth atmosphere to lure and seduce with femininity and sexual prowess, with the voice to convey with the cadence and sultry power.
Put simply, JAGUAR is another step forward for a career that’s been toiling and honing. Monét's moment won't be soon before long”.
The final piece I want to include is a review from NME. Whilst many gave JAGUAR four stars, I feel that more should have given it a full five stars! It is an E.P. with no faults. I have been listening to it a bit recently. It has most definitely whetted the appetite for JAGUAR II. I am curious whether the sound palette will be the same as the first part. Time will tell all. There is no doubting the incredible gifts of Victoria Monét:
“The 27-year-old singer-songwriter has had a hand in writing colossal hit singles, including Ariana Grande’s ‘Thank U, Next’ and ‘7 Rings’ (her work with the superstar’s most recent album, also titled ‘Thank U, Next’, won her no less than four Grammy nominations last year), and has collaborated with artists as varied as Fifth Harmony and Nas since the early ‘10s. And she’s now ready to step out to the centre of the stage with her debut album, the fiercely titled and ‘70s-inspired nine-song collection ‘JAGUAR’.
The Georgia-born, California-raised musician has long enjoyed a friendship with R&B producer D’Mile and the pair are a match made in audio Heaven, Monét soaring with magnetic choruses across nostalgic soundscapes. Channeling the fearless attitude of the titular beast, she leans into her desires, expressing both lust and emotional intensity. “I just wanna make you feel big boss like 1000 dollar bills” she chants on album opener ‘Big Boss (interlude)’, evoking the spirit of Keyshia Cole’s 2007 hit ‘Trust’, another song that explores the notion of selfless love.
The ‘70s funk-influenced title track finds Monét at her most vulnerable, admitting that she “lives on instinct”, and fittingly enough she seemingly spontaneously yells “let’s get wild” as distinctive horns – employed across the record – express unbridled joy. The funky ‘Go There With You’ sees her suggest that her passion, currently being used in an argument, could be transferred into the bedroom, an example of her twinkling sense of humour. The music is the message here, too, an electric guitar solo conveying a sense of reckless abandon. The song rolls around in the same bed sheets as Childish Gambino’s herculean 2016 hit ‘Redbone’.
Across ‘JAGUAR’, Victoria Monét unpicks the blurry line between lust and love, D’Mile’s impeccable and finely arranged production offering narrative stage directions such as the suggestive aforementioned guitar solo. Their relationship resembles that of R&B great Brandy and her frequent co-conspirator Rodney ‘Darkchild’ Jerkins, who has stood with the singer throughout most of her career (though the producer was notably absent from the recently released ‘B7’).
Victoria Monét reportedly delayed the release of ‘JAGUAR’ so as not to clash with the release of Beyoncé’s ‘Black Is King’ visual album. A shrewd move, perhaps, and this record heralds her as one of the most enticing acts in R&B’s contemporary canon, near-guaranteed to become a bonafide star in her own right”.
If you have not heard JAGUAR, go and check it out now and experience something very special. Doubtless one of the best E.P.s from 2020, JAGUAR could almost be called a mini-album. It has nine tracks, so I sort of think of it as being closer to an album in length compared to an E.P. However you define and categorise JAGUAR, there is no denying that it is…
A wonderful thing.