From The Curator at BlackFM
There is a particular pleasure, rather like decanting a bottle of good claret and allowing it to breathe before the first sip is taken, in watching an artist come fully into their own after years spent honing their craft somewhat out of the spotlight’s full glare. Victoria Monét, who spent the better part of a decade as one of popular music’s most dependable backroom hands, has long since graduated from that apprenticeship, and with the release of her new album Frequency of Love, as reported by RatedRnB, she offers further evidence that her present standing as a frontwoman of considerable charm was no accident of timing but the natural and rather satisfying conclusion of a career built patiently, brick by melodic brick.
The announcement of the album’s arrival, confirmed by RatedRnB in its report on the release, arrives as something of a culmination for an artist whose name has, for years, appeared in small print on records by singers considerably more famous than herself before her own name began to carry equal, and now arguably greater, weight. That journey from songwriter’s credit to headline act is one of the more satisfying narratives in contemporary R&B, and Frequency of Love stands as the latest chapter in it.
A Career Built on Craft
It is worth pausing, as one might before a particularly fine vintage, to consider the path that has led Monét to this point. The modern R&B landscape, much like the great jazz clubs of a previous era, rewards those who understand that mastery is rarely instantaneous; it is accrued, through long nights and quiet diligence, by those willing to serve an apprenticeship before claiming the spotlight for themselves. Monét’s ascent has followed precisely that pattern, her reputation built initially on her work for others before her own artistry demanded, quite rightly, to be heard on its own terms.
What RatedRnB’s report makes clear is simply this: the album is out now, and available to stream, a fact that in itself warrants attention given the anticipation that tends to surround a Monét release among those who follow contemporary R&B with any seriousness. The outlet’s framing of the news, brief though the available detail may be, situates Frequency of Love as the latest entry in a discography that has, record by record, built a case for Monét as one of the genre’s more considered and controlled voices.
The Title as a Thesis Statement
There is something pleasingly deliberate about the title itself. Frequency of Love suggests not merely a collection of songs about romance, the perennial subject matter of the genre since its inception, but something closer to a study of love’s rhythms and recurrences, its tendency to arrive and depart and arrive again like a signal tuned and lost and found once more. Whether that reading proves borne out by the record’s actual content is, of course, a matter for the listener to determine upon the album’s full absorption, but the title alone suggests an artist unwilling to settle for the obvious when a more interesting formulation is available.
R&B as a genre has always concerned itself, at its finest, with precisely this kind of emotional precision — the capacity to articulate feeling with both sincerity and craft, to avoid the twin traps of mawkishness on one hand and detached cleverness on the other. The great practitioners of the form, from the soul singers of the sixties onward, understood that the genre’s power lies in its willingness to sit with complicated feeling rather than resolve it too neatly. It is a tradition Monét, by all accounts of her previous work, has shown considerable facility in extending.
What Comes Next
For those encountering Monét’s work for the first time via this release, Frequency of Love offers an obvious entry point; for her existing audience, it offers confirmation, or perhaps refinement, of what they already suspected about her gifts. Either way, the album’s arrival, as detailed by RatedRnB, gives listeners the opportunity to stream the record and form their own judgment, which is, after all, the only verdict that ultimately matters in matters of taste.
What remains to be seen, inevitably, is how Frequency of Love settles into the broader conversation around Monét’s catalogue once the initial flush of release-week attention has passed and the record is left to make its case on repeated listens, the way all worthwhile albums eventually must. But the fact of its existence, confirmed and reported by RatedRnB, is itself cause for a measure of quiet satisfaction among those who have followed Victoria Monét’s progress from gifted collaborator to assured solo voice, and who understand that the frequency she now broadcasts on is entirely, deservedly, her own.
Source: ratedrnb.com. Keep listening on BlackFM Hip-Hop & R&B radio.
