Images by Dave Ellis for Steed Media Service
Unlike most people, Monica Denise Arnold wouldn’t change a thing about her life — even if she were empowered with the option to do so. She is at a place of happiness, contentment and acceptance with the way her journey has turned out thus far and in spite of all that has transpired. As the star of the new BET reality series “Still Standing,” which is also the title of her upcoming album and single, Monica is imbued with a supernatural peace that helped her overcome unthinkable adversities while giving her the ability to put things in their proper perspective.But fans who have loved Monica ever since she broke out with the triple-platinum debut album, Miss Thang, would be surprised and even shocked to know that the consummate entertainer’s soul has not been corroded by bitterness. She doesn’t play the blame game. She didn’t fall down some sinkhole of self-destructiveness to cope with the unfortunate turns her life sometimes took. She doesn’t waste time hurling curses at God or questioning why He would allow these things to happen to her. Finally — and this puts her in rarified air — Monica has no ax to grind with the music industry. In fact, Monica remains eternally grateful to the industry for blessing her immensely.
“I love my job. I love my life. The music industry afforded me this life — the chance to change my entire family surroundings [and] a chance to have children and give them things that I just did not have,” Monica explains during a break in the filming of the reality series “Still Standing.” She credits her faith in God and her enormous extended family for affording her a stable emotional safe haven that insulated her against some devastating personal blows.“You add that with the [comfort] that the music industry has afforded me over all these years,” Monica continues, “and the music industry hasn’t been bad to me. All the stuff I’ve experienced has been personal. And I think [those things] would have happened that way even if I hadn’t been an artist. I wouldn’t change it. I missed a prom or two, but I lived out a lot of my dreams. I was fortunate enough to see the world. I wouldn’t trade it — period.”Monica was at her lowest point, about to be crushed under the weight of her own sorrow, when she says God swooped in, picked her up and cradled her in His right hand. That’s why her reality show, “Still Standing,” is the perfect summarization of her current emotional and spiritual state. Monica has lived through tragedies that would have broken a weaker person. Our jails, insane asylums, homeless shelters and morgues are filled with folks who crumbled from the blunt force of life’s unexpected traumatic experiences. That’s why the words ‘still standing’ resonate so strongly with Monica.
“Still standing [are] words that, once you put them together, you think strength. Whatever the rest of the interpretation is, you think ‘still standing’ as in not giving up, not turning back, not letting go … that’s how I feel in my everyday life. ‘Still Standing’ is the title of the show, but it’s also the name of the album, because it’s the best representation of where I am right now. That may change in a couple of years. I hope that I’m still standing,” she says as an involuntary chuckle escapes her. “But how I look at things may change. It just best describes me right now.”
Monica delivers a stinging self-analysis of her misfortunes. “… The way you live determines the things that take place. So if a lot of bad things are taking place around you, then there’s probably something bad that’s going on within you,” she says without a trace of shame. “I was just real enough to know that that was the situation with me. It wasn’t just one thing, but a series of things. Whether it was losing people [or] people going to jail … whatever it was, I knew that if I changed some things within me, I [could] help them live better.”
More importantly, with the help of her mother and God she also helped herself. She knows that she could not have survived this tumultuous period without those pillars of strength to lean on. That is not to say that she’s completely over it. In the premiere of “Still Standing,” which aired after the BET Hip Hop Awards, Monica showed that she still gets very emotional when broaching the subject of her former boyfriend, Jarvis “Knot” Weems, who committed suicide in front of her when she was only 18 and at the peak of her popularity. Monica references that low moment as a poignant testimony of why you should never give up on life.
“You realize that you’re sad [and] you’re somber, trying to figure out what could have been done differently. Suicide is little tricky anyway. It’s different if a person gets killed in a car accident. It’s something different if they die of a disease or something of that nature. But when people get killed or take their own lives, it’s a different type of pain,” she says. “It’s just something totally different. You’re never prepared for it. The shock alone makes you feel like you’re dying on the inside.”
After an extended period of despondency, Monica finally came to a personal resolution, “You either learn to join the land of the living, or you’re going to function in the death,” she said. “I was really at the point where I wanted to be happy again. I wasn’t just living on those [bad] moments anymore. And that was because of my family always talking to me. The [people] that bring us through, allow us to have … love again. My mom spoke it into me on a regular basis, especially when [Weems] first passed. I had a little bit of time where I was able to digest the reality [of Weems’ death] and let go. I didn’t hear her words in the beginning because I was the walking dead for a little while.”
Reconnecting with her former boyfriend and current fiancé Rodney “Rocko” Hill Jr., also accelerated the healing process for Monica. The rapper and father of Monica’s two sons, Rodney “Rocko” III, 4, and Romello, 1, will also be featured during the 12-episode reality series. Rocko started his own record label and dropped his debut CD, Self-Made, in 2008, which produced the Top 10 rap hit “Umma Do Me.” He’s currently polishing up his second album, One on One, which is set for a February 2010 release date. Monica admits it took a minute to allow him to become a part of her world.
“It’s hard to let somebody in. Rocko was the person I had children with. Rocko was the first person I did a lot of things with. I think for me, it just took time to see that he was being supportive, making sure that I’m comfortable in every way. I need to acknowledge that and see him as someone that God brought into my life for a reason,” she says. “Now … I just learn from what took place [in the past] and every day I say ‘I love you.’ When you lose somebody you recognize the little bitty stuff. If he likes chocolate thunder from Outback, it becomes more important to you. So I think I love better because of what happened, because you don’t know when a person may not be there.”
Because Monica is at peace with the past, she is able to navigate her future with an uncluttered mind. The only thing that Monica wants to relive in her past, so to speak, is the formula that first brought her fame, the message songs like “Don’t Take it Personal (Just One of Dem Days)” and “Angel of Mine” that helped her first create that powerful emotional bond with her fans.“That’s why I’m still standing. Negative energy, it creates more of that. So if you’re looking for a fistfight and all that, it’s not over here. Ten years ago? Yeah, yeah,” she says. “Stop looking at what I used to do and look at what I’m doing now. Kids need to see somebody just like them. [That you can] start with nothing and have everything you want, on the inside and out. That’s me.”
