Victoria Monét has spent years building a home and an album at the same time. Her new record, Frequency of Love, arrives in less than 48 hours, and it captures a woman who has learned to live with the cracks in her voice.
The 37-year-old singer sat down with Variety in her Los Angeles home, where she described the slow process of finishing the 22-track record. She moved to the city in 2009, started writing for other artists, and finally released her debut, Jaguar II, in 2023. That album earned her a Grammy for best new artist in 2024. Now she is back with a follow-up that leans into her daughter Hazel and the voice that nearly gave out on her.
From Foundation to Infinity Pool
Monét bought the lot of land as a foundation, with dirt covering the ground for days. Two years ago, the floor was brown construction paper, and scaffolding reached toward the ceiling. Today, the home is an oasis of soft browns and tans, with an infinity pool in the backyard. She admits she is not often there.
“I’m not home all that much,” she says. “It does feel like a vacation to be home.”
The Vocal Struggle
The album took its time, but the recording process was anything but smooth. Monét battled vocal issues that changed the shape and sound of her tenor, making it harder to record. She graduated from culinary school in May and published the children’s picture book Everywhere You Are, a New York Times bestseller. She raised Hazel as a single parent while juggling side projects.
“I was struggling,” she says, her demeanor softening. “I feel like it was because of so much stress and pressure that as a Taurus, it was in my throat chakra or not really speaking my mind and doing what I want to do. It had built up in my throat and you could hear it in my singing voice and interviews. And if you look, you’ll be like, oh, her voice is about an octave deeper.”
She recalls a moment when she could not speak loudly enough to call Hazel down from the second floor.
Guests and Collaborators
The album reaches across genres, from quiet storm to smooth, finger-snapped R&B. It picks up where she left off publicly, referencing the moment she walked the Grammy carpet in 2024 with Hazel, who was three years old at the time. Her father was there, but the couple was already separated.
“All I Need” opens the record, and Monét says it captures the feeling of surviving chaos after the Grammys. “As long as I have my daughter, I can survive any of this, any of the chaos post-Grammys. The pressure, the separation… I already have a love of my life, notwithstanding the relationship not working out.”
The Guests List
The album features a slate of collaborators:
- Bruno Mars
- SZA
- Lucky Daye
- Bryson Tiller
- Chloe and Leon Thomas
- Her mother, cousin and aunt
- The Sunday Service Choir (“No Love Like Yours (Interlude)”)
Monét worked closely with Camper, the executive producer, who has worked with Usher and Brandy.
The Long Road to Here
Monét’s career followed a patient arc. She started pursuing her dream of being a solo act in 2009, when she first moved to Los Angeles. She wrote for Ariana Grande and Fifth Harmony before her own debut arrived. The Grammy win came after years of hard work and determination.
After the Grammys, she met Celine Dion and Shania Twain. Those encounters felt meaningful to her, but she was also grappling with a persistent tension in her voice that made it difficult to sing and speak.
She saw a neurologist, a rheumatologist and a speech pathologist. A doctor in Boston told her there was nothing wrong with her vocal cords or neural function. She tried muscle relaxants but stopped before developing a dependency.
The Record’s Reach
“We really believe that this album could be played as a classic for years,” Monét says. “So we want to make sure it’s everything we want it to be, even up to the pressures of the label being like, ‘Turn it in now!'”
The album is a 22-track fantasia that shifts in mood and genre, an homage to the music that raised her and the person she has become. It stands as one of the best R&B albums of 2026, a portrait of an artist whose talent has expanded the boundaries she set just a few years ago.
What We Know
- Album: Frequency of Love (22 tracks)
- Release: Less than 48 hours
- Grammy win: Best new artist in 2024 for Jaguar II
- Guests: Bruno Mars, SZA, Lucky Daye, Bryson Tiller, Chloe and Leon Thomas, plus her mother, cousin and aunt
- Executive producer: Camper
| Frequency of Love | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Victoria Monét |
| Tracks | 22 |
| Release | Less than 48 hours |
| Theme | Love of self, love of others, love for Hazel |
| Guest highlights | Bruno Mars, SZA, Lucky Daye |
Our View
Monét’s honesty about her vocal struggles is the heart of this story. She did not hide the difficulty, and she did not rush the record. The result is a personal album that feels lived-in, not polished.
The guests add range, but the record stays centered on Monét’s relationship with her daughter and the voice that carried her through the hardest stretch of her career. That vulnerability is rare in pop music, and it makes the record stand out.
Source material: “Victoria Monét Returns: The R&B Star on How She Overcame Vocal Issues and Embraced Motherhood for Her New Album ‘Frequency of Love’,” Variety.
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