Monique Nikkole‘s 2024 has been memorable. She received her first Grammy nomination for her work on Antonio Vergara’s blues album “The Fury.” She performed spoken word on the outro, a full-circle moment since she began in poetry before music.
How does it feel to be Grammy-nominated? Where were you when you found out?
As a recording artist. That’s the super bowl. It’s surreal still, you know, it’s sinking in, but I’m insanely happy about it. And I was on Instagram, sadly. You would think because I’ve been a voting member for years, I’d get a heads up, but it was just one of those things. I didn’t get up to watch the nominations come down. I kind of slept in and got up and I’m scrolling through Instagram and I was like, oh my God, wow I’m Grammy nominated. And that’s how I found out. I know it sounds crazy, but I just didn’t see it coming.
Why do you feel like so many people loved your very first single “Say Yes“?
I think because it was a song about love at a time where music has taken a turn where it was just going outside of love. It was a lot of sex. Everything was very lustful. Like, music wasn’t actually getting to the roots of the heart. And also, up until that time, there weren’t really any new wedding songs since, like, “Here and Now.” But then here comes Monique Nikkole with “Say Yes.” And it’s talking about a woman that was so busy in her career that she denied the proposal initially and then she regretted it. If you ask me now, I’ll say yes.
Who were your musical inspirations?
Really, I grew up on a lot of legendary vocalists. Like, they have that art, that thing that makes them distinctive. They sing, like really sing. It’s their voice. Stephanie Mills, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, I love some Jennifer Hudson, Melissa Morgan. I love Chante Moore, Minnie Riperton. These are the people that intrigued me, they made me want to sing. I grew up singing, so Mariah Carey of course too.
What was the inspiration behind your latest single “Queen of the Hustle?”
Well, my brother, because I’m a serial entrepreneur outside of music. I’m a real estate investor. Fitness queen. I do a lot of things. So, he said you the queen of the hustle. You need to make a record about being the queen of the hustle. So that came from him. But then during the midterm elections when Roe vs. Wade got rolled back, it took me in another direction. So, as I was writing it and once I came into the studio with the 10,000 pages with Marco and Jay Hot. J Hot produced the track and that was the inspiration. It was us as women holding our own, which we have been. And how dare you now try to roll back the rights for us that were enacted in 1973. You know, you’re not gonna just push us back. So that is how it came together. It was supposed to be just about hustling, but it’s about maintaining yourself and your rights as a woman, you know, and that’s pretty much the story behind it.
