Monica Denise Arnold (formerly Brown; born October 24, 1980) is an American singer, rapper and actress. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, she began performing as a child and became part of a traveling gospel choir at the age of ten. Monica rose to prominence after she signed with Rowdy Records in 1993 and released her debut album Miss Thang two years later. She followed it with a series of successful albums, including her highest-selling album The Boy Is Mine (1998) as well as the number-one albums After the Storm (2003), The Makings of Me (2006) and Still Standing (2010).

Monica’s popularity was further enhanced by her appearances in television series such as Living Single (1996), Felicity (2001), and American Dreams (2003), and films including Boys and Girls (2000), Love Song (2000), and Pastor Brown (2009). In 2008, she served as a key advisor on the NBC talent show The Voice. The recording of the song “Still Standing” along with her personal life, resulted in her own highly rated BET series Monica: Still Standing.

Throughout her career, several of Monica’s singles became number-one hits on the pop and R&B charts, including “Before You Walk Out of My Life”, “Don’t Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)”, “Like This and Like That”, “The Boy Is Mine” (with Brandy), “The First Night”, “Angel of Mine”, “So Gone”, and “Everything to Me”.

Monica has sold 5.3 million albums in the United States. In 2010, Billboard listed Monica at number 24 on its list of the Top 50 R&B and Hip Hop Artists of the past 25 years. A four-time nominee, she won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for her contribution to “The Boy Is Mine”, at the 41st awards ceremony. In addition she is the recipient of one Billboard Music Award, one BET Award, and two BMI Pop Awards.

Monica Denise Arnold was born in College Park, Georgia, the only daughter of Marilyn Best, a Delta Air Lines customer service representative and former church singer, and M.C. “Billy” Arnold Jr, who was a mechanic for an Atlanta freight company. Arnold’s mother is of African American descent and her father is African American with Indian and Irish ancestry. She has a younger brother, Montez (born in 1983), and a half brother, Jermond Grant, on her father’s side. Monica is also a cousin of record producer Polow da Don, and is related to rapper Ludacris through her mother’s second marriage to Reverend Edward Best, a Methodist minister.

At the age of 2, Monica followed in her mother’s footsteps with regular performances at the Jones Hill Chapel United Methodist Church in Marilyn’s hometown Newnan, Georgia. While growing up in the modest circumstances of a single-parent home after her parents’ 1984 separation and 1987 divorce, Monica continued training herself in singing and became a frequent talent-show contestant, winning over 20 local singing competitions throughout her early teenage years.

When she was 10 years old, she became the youngest member of “Charles Thompson and the Majestics”, a traveling 12-person gospel choir. She attended North Clayton High School with rapper 2 Chainz. She graduated from high school in 1997 at age 16, having skipped ahead scholastically by studying year-round with a private tutor.

In 1991, at the age of eleven, Monica was discovered by music producer Dallas Austin at the Center Stage auditorium in Atlanta, performing Whitney Houston 1986’s “Greatest Love of All”. Amazed by her voice, Dallas offered her a record deal with his Arista Records-distributed label Rowdy Records and consulted rapper Queen Latifah to work as Monica’s first manager. Shortly afterwards Dallas and then staff producers Tim & Bob entered the studio with Monica to start writing and producing her debut Miss Thang, which was eventually released in July 1995 and reached number thirty-six on the U.S. 

Billboard 200 and number seven on the Top R&B Albums chart. To date the album has sold 1.5 million copies in the United States. In January 2000 it was certified triple platinum by the RIAA for three million shipped units . The album produced three top ten singles, including debut single “Don’t Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)” and “Before You Walk Out of My Life”, which made Monica the youngest artist ever to have two consecutive chart-topping hits on the U.S. Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart.  Miss Thang subsequently won Monica a Billboard Music Award and garnered her an American Music Award nomination in the Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist category.

After a label change to Clive Davis’ Arista Records, Monica’s mainstream success was boosted, when “For You I Will”, from the Space Jam soundtrack (1996) became her next top ten pop hit. The song was written by Diane Warren. The following year she was asked to team up with singer Brandy and producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins to record “The Boy Is Mine”, the first single from both of their second albums. 

Released in May 1998, surrounding highly publicized rumors about a real-life catfight between both singers, the duet became both the biggest hit of the summer and the biggest hit of 1998 in general in America, spending thirteen weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It earned the pair a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal” and garnered multi-platinum sales (to date, it remains as one of the top twenty most successful American singles in history based on Billboard chart success). 

Jermaine Dupri, David Foster and Austin consulted on the album The Boy Is Mine, which was released later that year and it eventually became Monica’s biggest-selling album; selling over 2,016,000 copies. In June 2000 , the album was certified triple platinum by the RIAA for three million shipped units. It yielded another two U.S. number-one hits with “The First Night” and “Angel of Mine”, a cover of Eternal’s 1997 single, as well as a remake of Richard Marx’ “Right Here Waiting”. 

Rolling Stone proclaimed it “closer to soul’s source… harking back past hip-hop songbirds like Mary J. Blige and adult-contemporary sirens like Toni Braxton”, while AllMusic called the album an “irresistible sounding [and] immaculately crafted musical backdrop  as good as mainstream urban R&B gets in 1998.” Monica has also made guest appearances on several television shows such as Living Single (1996), Beverly Hills, 90210 (1997, 1999) and the Cartoon Network special Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak (2000).