October 24: Singer, songwriter Monica Denise Brown AKA Monica- is 33-years-old today.

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Monica Denise Brown – known professionally as Monica (née Arnold), was born October 24, 1980 in College Park, Georgia, south of Atlanta. She began performing as a child and became part of a traveling gospel choir at the age of ten.

Guided and developed by record producers Dallas Austin and Tim & Bob, Brown signed with Arista at age thirteen and released her debut album Miss Thang in 1995. It sold 1.5 million in the US, while its first two singles "Don't Take It Personal" and "Before You Walk out of My Life" made her the youngest recording act to ever have two consecutive chart-topping hits on the Billboard Top R&B Singles chart.

In 1998, Brown's second album The Boy Is Mine earned her major international chart success. Pushed by its Grammy Award-winning number-one hit title track, a duet with singer Brandy, it spawned two further chart-toppers, "The First Night" and "Angel of Mine,” and established her position as one of the most successful of the urban R&B female vocalists to emerge in the mid to late-1990s.

Brown also ventured into acting in 2000, with a supporting role in Boys and Girls, and starring in the television film Love Song. During the production of her third album All Eyez on Me in 2002, Brown experienced personal struggles and her career went under hiatus.

In 2003, her fourth album After the Storm was released, and after an unsuccessful period, she scored her fifth number one single, "So Gone.” Her sixth album Still Standing, which recording was tracked by a reality series of the same name, was released in 2010 and produced the hit single "Everything to Me.” The song was Brown's sixth number one hit.

In 2011, Brown joined the debut season of NBC's reality talent show The Voice as an adviser to musician coach Cee Lo Green. In April 2012, her seventh studio album New Life was released. In 2012, Brown began work on her eighth studio album. Yet untitled, Brown announced that she would be teaming with producers Missy Elliott, Rico Love, Jim Jonsin, Stargate, Mike WiLL Made It, Miguel, Polow Da Don, and Red Styles on the album.

Monica has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, including over six million units in the United States alone. With a career lasting over 15 years, she became the first artist to top the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. In 2010, Billboard listed Arnold at number 24 on its list of the Top 50 R&B and Hip Hop Artists of the past 25 years.

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For more about Monica, visit her Website at-

http://www.monica.com/us/home

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