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Monica has been in the music industry for over 20 years but she still hasn’t gotten the chance bring all of her dream collaborations into fruition.
While playing “Song Association” for Elle Magazine, the Atlanta songbird revealed who she always wanted to make a song with. When she was given the word “Can,” she sang “I Can Love You” by Mary J. Blige and revealed that making a song with Blige would be a dream come true.
“My dream collaboration would absolutely be my sister, my friend Mary J. Blige,” she said. “Still the Queen of [Hip-Hop Soul], point blank period. She has been so influential personally that professionally I think it would be easy for us. I don’t know who would write and produce the perfect song for she and I but one of my favorite songs by her, because I have many, is ‘Not Gon’ Cry’. You gotta get to a space where you know when you can’t even do it. It’s time to roll.”
Monica and Blige have shared the stage before but they never got in the studio together. They gave a performance together when they sang “Misty Blue” for Motown Live in 1998. Monica also paid tribute to Blige at the 2009 BET Honors when she sang her own rendition of “Not Gon’ Cry.”
Hopefully this dream can come true and a duet between them can be featured on Monica’s upcoming album, Trenches, which Monica announced was on the way back in September of 2020. The mother-of-three said she gave her upcoming ninth album that title to represent what she has and still is trying to overcome in her personal life.
“I’m still trying to adjust to the fact that I am now a divorced single mom with three kids,” she told ABC News Radio. “I’m in the trenches of that. I’m in the trenches of figuring out my everyday life. So, I named the album Trenches because I’m not ashamed of what I’ve been through. Some of it I have no control over, some of it all my fault. I’m living and learning, just like everyone else.”
Watch Monica play “Song Association” below.
