In 2021, Victoria Monet was in a showdown of strength so intense that she told Self, “I felt like Rocky.” The 30-year-old dancer-turned-singer doesn’t talk about spending long, focused hours in her studio, but she’s no stranger to it. She co-wrote a hit song with Chloe and Halle, a little song called “Thank You, Next” by Ariana Grande, and released her second album. Jaguar II, August 25th.
I’m looking forward to sitting down with her on Zoom to discuss the album. But at this moment we are talking about how she became her mother. The short walk to meet her baby was one of the most taxing physical feats of her life.It was her February 2021, and Monet and her partner, John Gaines, had just welcomed their daughter, Hazel; After an unexpected C-section, Hazel showed up with respiratory complications. “After I fed her for a little bit, they took her to the NICU,” Monet recalls.
Medical staff told her that she needed to be physically able to get out of bed and walk in order to see her newborn again. This is a common precaution after a Caesarean section. “I was literally in bed screaming to turn around and get up, and they were like, ‘You can’t fall in the NICU,'” Monet said. The moment her strength returned to her, she headed straight for Hazel.
Monet’s birth experience was similar to mine. I also had an unexpected C-section. In my case, it was 7 months before she and I talked in April, so when you just had a child who needs reassurance, and you need comfort too, you have all kinds of things going on in your body. I understand the emotions running through you. the study The number of unplanned caesarean sections is significantly higher among black women than among white women. My birth was horrific, but it was even more so because black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States, nearly three times that of white women.
Monet also remembers how extreme her experience was. After leaving her NICU and returning to her own hospital room, she had to face the intensity of everything that had just happened. “I had episodes where I was screaming and crying,” she explains. “[My] My hormones were out of control. She couldn’t understand why she was feeling this way,” she says. Thankfully, Hazel’s breathing stabilized and Monet also recovered. When she felt like it, she returned to her work. “After four or five days in her NICU, I went home with her. Six weeks later, I took her to the studio,” Monet says.
In this way, Jaguar II It is quite literally a labor of love. This project showcases Monet’s genre-bending vocal abilities and the writing skills she has honed over her 10-year career. In her songs, Monet delves into her thoughts swirling around in her mind about her self-image and her parenting right after giving birth. “After giving birth to Hazel, I went into full-blown depression. I was so hard on myself that I was so hard on myself about how I used to look and what I used to have. I was judging and worrying. Everything is just living in the past, that’s the setting. [for feeling like a failure],” she says. “[But] You have to think positively. It was a battle to be okay with whatever size I was at the time. So when you go to Disneyland with Hazel, you don’t have to worry about churros. Because he’s only at Disney for one day. ”
