{"id":47989,"date":"2025-11-11T11:45:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T11:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/47989\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T11:45:16","slug":"brandy-and-monica-reunite-for-a-parade-of-hits-in-la-concert-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/47989\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandy and Monica Reunite for a Parade of Hits in LA: Concert Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cI know y\u2019all remember \u2018Sittin\u2019 Up in My Room,’\u201d Brandy told the crowd<\/a> at Los Angeles\u2019 Kia Forum on Sunday night, her second show at the venue as part of her co-headlining \u201cThe Boy Is Mine\u201d tour with Monica<\/a>. \u201cY\u2019all are over 30, stop playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKnowing your audience, of course, was the primary catalyst for staging the tour in the first place. Brandy<\/a> and Monica, both titans of R&B who reached peak pop prowess in the 1990s and continued to redefine the sound of R&B in the new millennium, have had a storied, for lack of a better word, relationship since joining forces for the canonical 1998 duet \u201cThe Boy Is Mine.\u201d That song not only cemented itself into the historical archive of contemporary hits, but also further positioned each artist as a pop juggernaut:\u00a0\u201cThe Boy Is Mine\u201d was the best-selling single of that year and, depending on which side of their fandom you fell, became each of the singers\u2019 signature song. (At least, in some circles.)<\/p>\n

\n\tMuch of the lore surrounding Brandy and Monica in the years that followed has centered on a rift, fueled by reports of a physical altercation while rehearsing for the 1998 MTV VMAs and, as they plainly stated during a video interlude during their Forum show, the media and record labels stoking the feud flames. And it\u2019s why the timing for \u201cThe Boy Is Mine\u201d tour couldn\u2019t be better. In an age where online standom has turned so acrid that the slightest infraction can loom over an artist for years, Brandy and Monica finally \u2014\u00a0finally \u2014\u00a0took control of the narrative with a Covid-era appearance on Verzuz in 2020, putting those decades of dogged rumors to rest and giving fans the reunion they\u2019ve long anticipated. (It is worth noting, for those with long memories, that they did dead the alleged beef before, with the 2012 duet \u201cIt All Belongs to Me.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tNostalgia reigns supreme these days, especially on the live circuit, so it\u2019s no surprise that Brandy and Monica\u2019s two-hour Forum show was heavy on catalog. After all, concertgoers \u2014 including Rihanna, Jay-Z and Beyonc\u00e9 \u2014 came to hear the hits. However, what distinguished the performance was that, while both artists may be past their commercial prime, they are far from being nostalgia acts. Brandy and Monica are powerhouse singers whose voices have taken on deeper character and even tighter control in the decades since their debuts. At the Forum, they delivered hit after hit after hit, in minter condition than ever, trading off stage time as throngs of male backup dancers cycled in and out. It was a reminder \u2014 no, a reinforcement \u2014\u00a0that these two helped sketch the blueprint of what R&B and pop can be, and that the only thing that can make them stronger is when they come together.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat their reunion came 27 years after the dominance of \u201cThe Boy Is Mine\u201d made the evening even sweeter. The audience, brimming with millennials, finally got to witness what a tour that should have taken place decades ago could be. And it was worth the wait. The differences between Brandy and Monica were distinct \u2014 the former a student of \u201990s pop, leaning heavily on choreography and spectacle; the latter with a poised approach, a regal figure content with standing in place while belting a ballad \u2014\u00a0yet their performance styles never felt at odds. They staged the show as something of a callback to their Verzuz battle, emerging together in an elevator car before taking seats on either side of the stage, trading off songs: Brandy with \u201cWhat About Us?\u201d and \u201cI Wanna Be Down,\u201d Monica with \u201cKnock Knock\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days).\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show teetered between artists \u2014\u00a0Brandy with three songs here, Monica with two there \u2014\u00a0making for a ceaseless conveyor belt of hits and many, many costume changes. It was the type of show where you\u2019d declare the song being performed is your favorite, only to reassess that, no, this other song is actually your favorite. Brandy dug deep in the archives with \u201cBaby\u201d and \u201cBest Friend,\u201d and performed somewhat deeper album cuts like \u201cAfrodisiac\u201d and \u201cAngel in Disguise.\u201d Monica did the same, singing \u201cBefore You Walk Out of My Life\u201d and \u201cLike This and Like That,\u201d calling back to \u201cSo Gone\u201d and \u201cEverytime tha Beat Drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThey broke up the evening with a few guest appearances \u2014 LL Cool J treated the crowd to \u201cLuv U Better\u201d and \u201cDoin\u2019 It,\u201d while Mario sang \u201cLet Me Love You,\u201d O.T. Genasis performed \u201cCut It\u201d and Blxst made a brief cameo for \u201cChosen.\u201d But the co-headliners remained the nucleus of the show, not a single note wasted. The penultimate song of the night, fittingly, was a rendition of Whitney Houston\u2019s \u201cI Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),\u201d an artist who had a significant impact on each of them, as they both got signed off of auditions with \u201cThe Greatest Love of All\u201d and had close relationships with the late singer. <\/p>\n

\n\tBefore drawing the performance to a close with the tour\u2019s namesake song, Brandy and Monica united one last time to do what we\u2019d all come to see: celebrate each other in the ways that we\u2019ve always celebrated them. \u201cIt\u2019s both an honor and a pleasure to be on stage with you now after 27 long years,\u201d Monica told Brandy. \u201cYou have a voice that transcends time, and we all love you from the bottom of our hearts. Today, tomorrow, forever.\u201d \u201cAnd we love you,\u201d responded Brandy. \u201cI am honored to be on stage with you, you are an icon. You make me better. I am so glad you did \u2018The Boy Is Mine.\u2019 The song would not have been what it was if you were not on it. And it\u2019s brought us together 27 years later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the end, all of the talk of bad blood and rumors led towards this one moment. And it begged the question: Who won in the great Brandy and Monica wars? All of us, apparently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI know y\u2019all remember \u2018Sittin\u2019 Up in My Room,’\u201d Brandy told the crowd at Los Angeles\u2019 Kia Forum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[31212,48,52,51,47,50,49,31213],"class_list":{"0":"post-47989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-brandy","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news","15":"tag-monica"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}