Throwback Thursday: Brandy & Monica – “The Boy Is Mine” (Live at the 1998 VMAs)

Throwback Thursday: Brandy & Monica – “The Boy Is Mine” (Live at the 1998 VMAs)

Before there was Britney and Christina, there was Brandy and Monica. They released their debut singles just months apart, they were close in age, and the Venn diagram of their fan bases is essentially a circle. Naturally, there were rumors of a rivalry, so when the two collaborated on a song where they play adversaries, the public ate it up.

In 1997, Brandy co-wrote, co-produced and recorded a song called “The Boy Is Mine.” Yes, this iconic duet was once a solo track. However, after hearing the initial recording, Brandy and one of the song’s co-writers and co-producers, Rodney “Darkchild” Jenkins, thought it would sound better as a duet — an idea that is said to have been partly inspired by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s “The Girl Is Mine.”

Phone calls were made and Monica ended up on the track. The song would become the lead single from both singers’ sophomore albums — Never Say Never and The Boy Is Mine — and would go on to become one of the longest-running No. 1 hits in the history of the American charts, spending 13 weeks at the throne.

At the time, the two played nice, but behind the scenes, they were not getting along. There was so much tension that they couldn’t even promote the song together, and the one time they performed it — at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards — Monica put the paws on Brandy during rehearsal. I still have vivid memories of this story being reported.

Of course, both singers denied the incident at the time, but years later, they would eventually come clean during a 2012 interview with Angie Martinez.

In honor of this storied rivalry and in anticipation of the 2019 VMAs, which take place on Monday, let’s revisit the one and only televised performance of this late ’90s classic.