Victoria Monét: The pounce of a global R&B juggernaut

In our second interview, her work ethic extends to the prequel to her musical career: dancing. Divulging on movement broadly, she reveals her influences traverse time, including the sometimes androgynous swagger in the late Aaliyah’s form of dance to TLC and Usher’s infectious routines. “I’d never really seen that style of dance before or those elements. But I also felt feminine at the same time. They looked so cool,” she recalls, her deep-brown eyes twinkling as she gets lost in a sea of memories, almost flicking through Aaliyah’s visuals in real-time in her head. Minutes later she calls the ‘King of Pop’ Michael Jackson’s addition to the craft a “trance” to which he had the world in, appreciating the “magic” he brought to the stage. Finding her way to Janet Jackson through the Titan, she also was mesmerised.

After moving from her birth home of Atlanta, Georgia, during her childhood, Monét found herself in Sacramento, California. It was there, aged 12, that she performed for the first time at the Kings basketball team half-time show. “Parents could bring their kids and they could learn a routine for the weekend,” she begins. “We all got to perform at the half-time show and performed it in front of 100 people.” Monét was won over instantly, declaring to her mother that she was “in love” with movement. Learning a variety of dance styles like jazz, ballet, hip hop, and yoga throughout high school, she joined an older dance crew Boogie Monsters, filled with twenty-something-year-olds, to her mother’s displeasure.

“Seeing the lifestyle really changed my dynamic and demeanour,” Victoria Monét says, leaning into the passivity in her voice for a moment — almost reflecting a longing for that part of her life again. “It all worked out though,” she says abruptly, her tone heightening with enthusiasm. A producer in the dance group, then under the moniker ‘PC’ (Problem Child), led her to music. She now uses this canvas to convert audiences with her 360-degree offering. Inside the studio, her songs are crafted by beacons like D’Mile, but also utilise her skills as a songwriting extraordinaire. At the front of house, the ‘Jaguar’ has enthralled her prowl, first across the States, and now in European terrain. Watching her in action 24 hours prior, she is an embodiment of all her training. Neatly packaging her hour-plus Roundhouse debut into a rapid display of dramatised gestures, both simple and more paced alongside her dancer duo, hired for the tour. Veering towards a hybrid of The Supremes, Tina Turner, and The Exciters to more fluidity and placid movement à la ‘Smooth Criminal’ to infusions of bucking, popularised in visuals such as Ciara’s ‘Ride’, Jaguar The Tour provided the platform for Monét to play with dance wholeheartedly and proved enticing in the endurance-fuelled spectacle for just under £40 in a more tumultuous post-pandemic touring climate.