Thoughts?

I couldn’t agree more. There is nothing wrong with NOT crossing over if it means keeping control of artistic integrity, but in Monica’s case, I think her remaining “true” to R&B is just a cop out for not really being able to develop artistically. It kills me when people praise her for staying “true”. She’s not exactly Ledisi, Marsha Ambrosius, or Erykah Badu. She’s keeping herself in a box by always releasing hood rat anthems and over-sampled Missy records. I’m not a hater, I love Monica, and have purchase 3 of her 5 U.S. studio albums, but frankly she’s becoming a bore by constantly releasing the same redundant music over and over.

Monica has tried the cross over thing before (remember her second album?) But she is one of those artist who WILL truly remain true to her craft. I like the fact that she stays with R&B. Some major artist like Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, and Celine Dion have stayed in their own lanes and have been extremely successful and sure Monica may never have their success but at least she will be herself at the end of the day

I have no problem with Monica staying true to her sound and catering to the audience that has supported her from day 1…for a R&B artist to “crossover” in today’s music market means start doing dance-pop music (see Usher, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, Kelly Rowland, etc.) and that is NOT what I want Monica to do…and I don’t understand the whole “all she does is release hoodrat anthems” thing either…there wasn’t any hoodrat anthems on her last album…songs such as Everything to Me and Love All Over Me were classic R&B songs with great vocals