Brandy and Monica Confirm Plans to Collaborate on New Music

Brandy and Monica appeared on The Tonight Show, where they announced they will join forces for new music ahead of their forthcoming joint tour. The singers previously teamed up for 1998 single “The Boy Is Mine,” which was inspired by an episode of Jerry Springer’s talk show.

“I was a huge Jerry Springer fan,” Brandy recalled to host Jimmy Fallon. “One of the topics was ‘The boy is mine,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Song idea. Let’s do this.’”

The duo explained that they were mutual fans of each other before recording the duet. “I wanted to work with her so I called her up and asked her to be a part of the song,” Brandy recalled. “She said ‘yes’ and here we are.”

Monica added, “When I first heard the song I thought, ‘Are people going to think we’re fighting?’ And people still think we’re fighting. I don’t know if it’s the greatness of the song or something else, but it did just start something completely different… We’re a musical marriage. It is a musical marriage.”

The singers also reflected on Ariana Grande‘s remix of “The Boy Is Mine” on her recent album Eternal Sunshine. Grande called to ask permission to reimagine the tune. “I think it was how personable she was that made us feel so comfortable,” Monica said. “We’ve always been very adamant about people leaving history as it is. But the integrity of it is still there.”

Brandy and Monica recently announced The Boy Is Mine tour, which will find the two R&B musicians on the road for 24 shows with support from Kelly Rowland, Muni Long, and Jamal Roberts. The trek will begin on Oct. 16 in Cincinnati and extend through Dec. 7, when the duo will close out the run with a final show in Houston. Brandy noted to Fallon that the tour is “twenty-seven years in the making.”

The duo confirmed they will be collaborating on more than just the tour. “It opens the door, for sure,” Monica said of new music. Fallon suggested they could have a studio on their tour bus. “No, we’re not doing the studio tour bus,” Monica replied. “We’re seasoned women. We need proper rest, alright? We’re going to 24 cities!”

She added, “So what we’re going to do is just be smart about it. We’ll start working on the music immediately and then we can just be prompting it while we’re on the road. But no tour bus studios. That’s for the rappers.”