— Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Jason Gallagher
Jerzee Monét could be a character out of the old "In Living Color" skit "Hey, Mon," which starred that hardworking fictional family the Hedleys, because this New Jersey native isn't comfortable with idle hands.
After graduating high school she moved to Trenton to become a hairstylist, then she moved down to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she worked security at a mall before continuing to do hair full-time. After her shift at the beauty shop, Jerz, who studied culinary arts in school, would work at a friend's restaurant, cooking everything from chicken cheeseburgers to macaroni and cheese. Refusing to let singing take the back burner, she practiced her craft every morning for two hours so she could develop her own vocal niche.
Her aspirations heated up hotter than fish grease when DMX rolled into her restaurant while on the Ruff Ryders/Cash Money tour in 1999. "They come in, and I'm cooking this Alaskan flounder, and DMX comes up to my counter. He goes, 'What're you cooking? Can you make me that? I'm DMX.' I say, 'Nice to meet you. I'm Jerz.' "
Holding true to his song lyrics, which insist the dog is gonna roam, X abruptly broke out of the joint, but Jerz couldn't let her shot at stardom pass her by.
"I saw him running out the door, and I ran out behind him, like, 'Are you looking for some new artists?' He says, 'I'm always looking for some new artists.' So I was like, 'Gimme a chance.' "
From there, Jerz put on the war paint, so to speak, and hit the Ruff Ryders' hotel and sang for "20 to 30" people that night. Her big break started taking shape when she impressed Boondo, who was Eve's road manager at the time and a longtime friend of X's. After a few months he politicked a deal with DreamWorks.
In the studio, Monét found her lane while working with Tyrice Jones, the producer of her first single, "Most High."
"I told him, 'Tyrice, I'm looking for a style that nobody has. I've got this voice. Boondo likes this certain sound that I do — we wanna make that Jerzee, let's make that Jerzee,' " she said. "We did no work that day. We talked the whole, entire day. He said, 'What are you looking for?' [I told him,] 'I'm sick of mothers cussing at their kids. I'm sick of deadbeat dads running around. This right here makes a person want to get high.' He said, ['That's it,] " Most High."'"
Monet places her sistas on highest pedestal on "Yeah," which Eve appears on thanks to a favor Boondo called in.
"That's the ladies' anthem," Monét gushed. "Totally! It's not biased, it's not man-bashing or anything. It's a good song because it's strictly for ladies about getting money, being independent and not having anybody to stop them."
Something Moné can no doubt relate .
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