The 2016 Soul Train Weekend festivities in Las Vegas kicked off on Thursday night with Monica and friends performing at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay Resort. The Acoustically Speaking performance revealed a few intimate details on the singer's love life, music career and the importance of family in remaining humble.
Monica Brown took the stage last night in Las Vegas for an intimate Q&A session with TV/radio host and personality, Big Tigger, for BET's Acoustically Speaking.
Tigger asked questions like how do you remain so humble and approachable to your fans in the music business after reaching over 20 years of success? Or, why do you choose to share your personal experiences in love and love loss with the public?
Brown revealed how her openness and honesty has kept her relevant in this business thus far and helps her fans relate to her music.
"I really believe that you have to be you," she explained. "I really believe that if you're not honest with the people then you don't relate to them."
That honesty has been transformed into lyrics for some of her greatest hits like, "U Should've Known Better," "Before You Walk Out My LIfe," "Just Right For Me," and her 2003 single, recently made into a social media challenge, "So Gone."
Each song spoke to matters of her personal love life and exposed what some would say are private details of when she "fell in and out of love with the right and wrong people and a lot of different things happened."
"U Should've Known Better" was a song about being in a relationship with someone who was incarcerated. The Missy Elliot produced track, "So Gone" was the most sincere of her career due to how it was created.
Brown reflected on working in the studio with Elliot when one day she received a phone call from a guy she was dating at the time. Elliot eavesdropped on the conversation and from that, "So Gone" was created.
Her fans related to that song and it was their love for it that made it popular both then and now.
Brown shared her advise to other artists who sometimes forget just how important their fans are to their careers.
I always tell artist 'you can't get so caught up in yourself that your forget that the people make it happen for you'," she explained. "You don't buy your own records, you don't come to your own shows, you don't scream your own name while you're on these stages."
In addition to her fans Brown explained how important it is for artists to surround themselves with real people who aren't afraid to tell them what they may not want to hear.
For Brown, those people are her family members.
"I got that kind of family that won't let you lose sight," she stated. "I think what happens is people spend so much time praising them [music artists] that they never tell them when they're out of line. I never had that happen.
The singer took the stage lastly, after Yuna and Tank, who filled in for Jazmine Sullivan who couldn't make the show due to an unexpected family emergency.