April 21. 2010
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Page 11
ISIIIIiISHIM
With New Album,
GRAND OPENING
Monica is Back
April 17,2010
U-licious Smokehouse & Grill
R easserts
standing in
urban genre
(AP) - Monica, who debuted at
15 with the multiplatinum-selling CD
"Miss Thang," wasn't one who suc­
cumbed to celebrity pitfalls as a
child star.
But still, she says growing up
was hard.
"I experienced a lot of different
hardships. The suicide of my first
love, the death of my grandmother,
the loss of a lot of different things
that happened in the public eye that
I didn't get a chance to step away
and grieve and live like your aver­
age person would," Monica, now
2 9 ,said.
That's why on her new CD, "Still
Standing," you'll hear a familiar re­
frain from the singer proclaiming
how, on the verge of 30, she's fully
matured.
"W hen 1 say I'm not who I used
to be, I mean that some o f the
things that's happened in my life,
they were ju st consequences to
my own actions, me not m aking
great decisions, me not picking
the right people to be around and
keep in my com pany," she ex ­
plained.
Keeping herself grounded not
only helped her personal life — but
her professional one too.
"Still Standing," her fifth album,
debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard
Top 200 albums chart last month,
selling 184,000 units its first week, Monica
1505 NE Killingsworth
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according to Nielsen SoundScan.
"I was surprised to see those
numbers. I had no clue," she said.
The success reasserts her stand­
ing in the urban music genre.
Her latest album's first single, the
Deniece Williams-sampled "Every­
thing to Me," is spending its fourth
week on top of the R&B charts. She
recruited Jamie Foxx for the remix of
her next single, the bedroom groove
"Here I Am," and she's planning a
summer tour with R&B crooner Trey
Songz.
What's also helped is Monica's
reality show on BET — also titled
"Still Standing" — connecting the
R&B songstress to a younger audi­
ence. She says she's in negotiations
with the network for a second sea­
son.
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