Online Reporter
LOS ANGELES. — Brandy has long said the idea for “The Boy Is Mine” came out of a desire to get the last laugh amid a media storm that took pleasure in pitting the young R&B stars against each other.
But at the time, Brandy’s idea to work with Monica on the new record was not supported by most of the people around her.
“’You’re fanning the flames,’ my mother warned. ‘People will blow this out of proportion,’ my brother said. ‘It’s a mistake,’ one Atlantic executive said flatly during a meeting, not even bothering to hear me out,” writes Brandy, who reached out to Monica anyway.
And while the success of the song became meteoric, the people close to her weren’t exactly wrong:
The song put the pair under even more scrutiny as the media nitpicked every interaction as evidence of a rift that eventually did become one because of industry politics.
Brandy explains one situation that turned heads: her choosing to perform the song solo on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”
She says Monica had a scheduling conflict, but she couldn’t pass up the promotional opportunity.
“I convinced myself I couldn’t afford to pass on national television exposure, so I performed our duet alone, singing both parts,” she writes.
“My intention wasn’t to slight Monica, but the optics were problematic at best.”
The pair got over the rift in time to accept a Grammy for the record. They reconnected in 2010, attending Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala together to see their mentor Whitney Houston’s performance the following February.
Brandy co-wrote the song with Rodney “Darkchild Jerkins, LaShawn Daniels, Japhe Tejeda, and Fred Jerkins III. Jerkins and Dallas Austin also handled the production. Brandy, at first, sang the song; however, Jerkins wasn’t feeling the solo and thought it would be a better idea to be a duet.
At Brandy’s request, her label, Atlantic Records, approached fellow R&B teen singer Monica to collaborate.
The two had seen each other but never interacted.
With the permission of Clive Davis, who headed Monica’s record company Arista Records, Monica eventually signed on to the project.
The music video was directed by Joseph Kahn and filmed in Los Angeles, uses 90-degree tilts to depict the drama and the playfulness between the two.
Making its debut on April 22, 1998, it uses the radio edit of the song, removing the intro.
Actor Mekhi Phifer starred as the boy who was dating Brandy and Monica at the same time in the same apartment, while Brandy and Monica are technically fighting over this boy.
The Boy is Mine received positive reviews and became number one on the charts.
It became the second song in the history of the chart to ascend directly to number one from a previous position beneath the Top 20, at number 23, following the Beatles and the 27–1 leap of their single “Can’t Buy Me Love” in April 1964.
The duo won a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Brandy was 17 at the time, making her the youngest R&B artist won win a Grammy. — USA Today
