On February 21st, 30 years ago, Rowdy/Arista started their marketing push for Monica, sending videoclips for “Don’t Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)” to BET and specialty shows like The Box.
There was so much buzz around her age because, even though 15-year-olds Aaliyah and Brandy had both dropped their albums the year before, Monica was a 14-year-old whose voice sounded like it belonged to someone much older. Back in those days, I was definitely Team Monica over everyone else (man did I pick wrong!) but the fact that three of the biggest stars in R&B music were barely out of junior high school is an interesting time capsule of the mid-90s.
The age of a teenaged starlet had never been a big part of the marketing push until the 80s. R&B has always had teen girls, but their ages weren’t a factor in the artist package. Back in the 60s, Gladys Knight was 17 when the Pips got their first top ten hit, and two years later, Diana Ross was 18 when the Supremes had their first Top 40 hit on the R&B charts. Evelyn “Champagne” King recorded “Shame” at 16-years-old, and it was one of the biggest disco hits of the decade.
By comparison, male R&B stars could be much younger and much was made over the precociousness of a young boy making R&B with such feeling. Stevie Wonder was 13 with his first number one single, and Michael Jackson was 11 (marketed as 9) when the Jackson 5 first hit number one. Bobby Brown formed New Edition as an updated iteration of the Jackson 5, and he was 14 when “Candy Girl” went #1 on R&B radio. The two youngest members of Another Bad Creation were even younger: Mark and Lil Dave were both 9 when the group scored two Top Ten singles in 1991.
The market for Black teen girls was being served by boys, but girls who wanted to sing R&B were marketed to adults. This started to change with Janet Jackson in the mid-80s.
As the youngest of the Jackson Family, Janet was seen as young regardless of her age, partly because she was the baby of the family, partly because she had grown up on television, and partly because of those big ol’ chipmunk cheeks you just wanna pinch even well into her 50s. Her first two albums were released under the watchful eye of her father, but her third album saw Janet strike out on her own, claim her independence, and assert Control over her own life as a teenager. The marketing zeroed in on the fact that Janet was barely out of high school and it resonated with Black teenaged girls who also wanted to say “I’ve got my own life…” and “No my first name ain’t baby…” and “What have you done for me lately?”
Well! If there are little Black girls who want to buy music from young Black girls like them, A&M Records (Janet’s label) said let’s give them what they want!
Shanice was a child star, appearing in commercials from the time she could talk. She appeared on Star Search and then signed a record deal with A&M at age 13. In 1987, she released her debut album with two top ten hits on the R&B chart, and she was on her way to stardom. Her second album in 1991 was introduced with “I Love Your Smile” which is still a hit in grocery store chains around the country.
Not to be outdone, Capitol Records signed Tracie Spencer at age 11. When her debut album was released, she was 12-years-old with her first Top 20 single on R&B radio and 14 when she cracked the Top 10 of the Hot 100.
From there on out, we definitely saw age as part of the marketing package for Black female teens the way we’d always seen it for Black male teens, but it’s much harder to thread that needle of age and maturity when applying it to girls because of the real-world dynamics at play. The boys were expected to be and accepted as “cute” when they were singing grown-up songs, but the girls were often aged up in such a way that their actual age was contrasted against their mature image to build the marketing around how much older they seemed. Tracie Spencer was wise beyond her years because she was 12 and writing about social change. Aaliyah was (unfortunately) “grown” before her time because she was in men’s clothes and down with the clique. Monica stepped into that mold as a 12-year-old with a recording contract who sounded like a church lady with an Altima and two kids. Billboard’s first write-up of Monica (where they call her a rapper! the disrespect!) during the promotional campaign zeroed in on her maturity and the fact that she recorded the album at 12 and 13.
When the video was released, there was nothing in particular that made Monica seem older than 14. You can have a short haircut as a high school freshman. You can get your nails done. You can shop at Talbot’s even. But when you put it all together with the way she’s being directed to carry herself, the hand motions they’ve decided to include, and the way Monica delivers the song, you don’t get a 9th-grader. You get a Nissan Altima and two kids.
Whatever the secret sauce was, it worked. The song hit #2 and then it was followed by “Before You Walk Out My Life” which was another smash. That year, Monica became the youngest artist to have two consecutive #1 singles on the Billboard R&B Chart. Marketing has frequently focused on age ever since with much press surrounding Tiffany Evans (12), Alicia Keys (15), Beyonce (15), Solange (16), Mya / Rihanna / Teairra-Mari (17), and Ciara (18) when they were signed by major labels.
I put some of my favorites together in a little playlist. The space for teens in R&B has dried up since the 2000s and with the music landscape so fractured, there’s not always a need for a big marketing push from a label if you can just reach your fans directly on social media. So here’s a playlist of R&B Teen Queens but also a time capsule of the mid-80s to early 00s.
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