The 2010s File Feature
Monopoly
Monopoly: Ariana Grande, Victoria Monet, and the Friendship Record That Rewrote the Rules "Monopoly" arrived on April 19, 2019, not through a grand press cam…
01 The Story
Monopoly: Ariana Grande, Victoria Monet, and the Friendship Record That Rewrote the Rules
"Monopoly" arrived on April 19, 2019, not through a grand press campaign or a label-orchestrated rollout but through a casual social media post that Ariana Grande and Victoria Monet treated more like sharing a playlist recommendation than releasing a commercial single. That low-key approach was entirely in keeping with the spirit of the track, a breezy, self-assured piece of pop-R&B that celebrated the bond between two longtime collaborators and dared the music press to draw its own conclusions about its most talked-about line.
The friendship between Grande and Monet stretches back to the early 2010s, when both were navigating the treacherous terrain of the post-teen-pop industry. Monet had already co-written a substantial number of songs for Grande, including contributions to the albums Yours Truly, My Everything, Dangerous Woman, and Sweetener. Their creative partnership had become one of the most productive in contemporary pop, yet Monet remained largely invisible to the mainstream audience that was consuming the results of their work. "Monopoly" was designed to change that, placing both women on equal footing in a record that credited them jointly as performing artists.
The production was handled by Tommy Brown and Michael Foster, two producers who had been central to Grande's sonic world across multiple albums. Brown in particular had developed a signature approach, layering trap-influenced percussion beneath melodic R&B vocal runs, and that template is deployed here with a lightness of touch that keeps the song feeling effortless rather than constructed. The beat maintains a buoyant, mid-tempo energy that allows both singers to trade verses without either one overwhelming the arrangement.
"Monopoly" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 70 in the chart dated April 13, 2019, before climbing one position to its peak of number 69 the following week. While that chart run of just two weeks was brief, the song's cultural footprint extended far beyond what those numbers might suggest. The track accumulated more than 58 million YouTube views, a figure that reflects sustained audience engagement long after its initial promotional window closed.
The most discussed moment in "Monopoly" involves a lyric in which Grande states that she likes women as well as men, a declaration delivered with the same casual confidence that characterizes the rest of the track. In subsequent interviews, Grande clarified that she was not making a formal coming-out announcement but rather speaking openly about the fluidity of her experiences, and that the line was written honestly rather than strategically. That explanation did not stop the media from running extensive speculation, which in turn drove enormous online conversation and kept the song visible in news cycles for weeks after its release.
For Monet, the release marked a meaningful step in her transition from celebrated songwriter to recognized recording artist in her own right. She had released her own music independently before "Monopoly," but the song's reach introduced her to an audience of many millions who had consumed her songwriting without knowing her name. The attention generated by the release helped lay the groundwork for her subsequent solo career, which would eventually produce critically acclaimed work including the album Jaguar in 2020 and Jaguar II in 2023, the latter earning her multiple Grammy Award nominations.
The song's title is used as a metaphor for dominance and control, a theme that runs through the entire track's lyrical framework. Grande and Monet position themselves as forces who operate by their own rules, who have accumulated enough cultural and creative equity to set the terms of engagement with the industry and with their audiences. The Monopoly board game reference carries connotations of owning the board, of having acquired enough of the playing field that the outcome is effectively predetermined.
Critically, the reception was warm without being rapturous. Reviewers noted the chemistry between the two performers and praised the relaxed quality of the production, though some observed that the song was clearly designed as a fan-service gesture rather than a bid for commercial dominance. That reading did not diminish its value; sometimes records exist primarily to delight existing listeners rather than to convert new ones, and "Monopoly" succeeded conspicuously at that goal.
The release also arrived during an exceptionally productive period for Grande, who had released Thank U, Next in February 2019, just two months earlier. That album had generated multiple massive hits, including the title track and "7 Rings," both of which had claimed the number one position on the Hot 100. "Monopoly" functioned as a between-projects release, a gift to fans during what might otherwise have been a quiet period, and it arrived with the confidence of an artist who understood her relationship with her audience well enough to offer them something different without worrying about commercial consequences.
The music video reinforced the partnership dynamic, presenting Grande and Monet in a series of visually playful scenarios that emphasized their friendship and creative equality. The styling choices drew considerable attention, and the video accumulated tens of millions of views within days of its premiere, contributing to the song's streaming numbers and overall cultural visibility.
In the longer arc of both artists' careers, "Monopoly" stands as a document of a specific moment, a time when a pop superstar and her longtime collaborator chose to celebrate what they had built together rather than pursue any particular commercial objective. It is simultaneously a piece of pop history and a personal statement, and its durability in both artists' catalogs suggests it achieved both goals with considerable success.
Chart Performance and Commercial Context
Despite its brief two-week presence on the Hot 100, "Monopoly" performed strongly on streaming platforms. Its debut came during a period of peak interest in Grande following the Thank U, Next cycle, which meant the song benefited from an unusually attentive audience. The track's longevity on streaming services, evidenced by its 58 million YouTube views, demonstrates that listener interest extended well past the initial burst of novelty that surrounded its release.
The song was released without a formal album context, which limited its eligibility for certain chart metrics but also gave it an unencumbered quality that resonated with listeners who appreciated the spontaneity of its arrival. Both Grande and Monet have cited the experience of making and releasing the track as one of the more purely enjoyable creative collaborations of their careers.
02 Song Meaning
Ownership, Identity, and Female Solidarity in "Monopoly"
"Monopoly" by Ariana Grande and Victoria Monet operates on several thematic registers simultaneously, moving between assertions of personal power, celebrations of female friendship, and candid statements about identity and sexuality. What makes the song interesting as a cultural object is not any single element but the way these threads are woven together with a lightness that makes the overall statement feel relaxed rather than confrontational.
The central metaphor of the track, drawn from the classic board game, speaks to a very specific conception of success. Monopoly as a game is fundamentally about accumulation and control: the goal is to acquire enough property and assets that opponents are effectively eliminated from competition. When Grande and Monet invoke this image, they are describing a mode of existing in the music industry and in public life where they have accumulated sufficient creative and cultural equity to operate by their own terms. The metaphor carries a competitive edge while simultaneously suggesting that the competition itself has already been resolved in the singers' favor.
The song's treatment of identity, particularly in the lines where Grande references her attraction to women as well as men, was the most discussed aspect of the track upon release. Within the lyrical context of "Monopoly," however, this declaration is delivered not as a dramatic revelation but as a matter-of-fact element of self-description, equivalent in weight and tone to the song's other assertions about confidence and self-possession. The framing communicates something important about how the artists approach identity more broadly: as something to be stated simply and without extensive qualification, rather than as a confession requiring elaboration or defense.
The theme of creative partnership runs through the song as both subject matter and structural principle. The fact that two women who had spent years working together in an unequal credit structure, one as the star and one as the largely invisible collaborator, chose to release this track together under equal billing gives the song's lyrical assertions about mutual power an additional layer of meaning. "Monopoly" is in part a document of a creative relationship being brought into the light and acknowledged publicly.
The production choices support the lyrical themes with considerable elegance. The buoyant, mid-tempo arrangement refuses to demand urgency or drama from the listener. The beat is self-assured rather than striving, which mirrors the lyrical posture of two artists who do not need to raise their voices to make their point. The melody floats above the trap-influenced percussion with a casualness that itself communicates ease and confidence, the sonic equivalent of not needing to try very hard because the outcome is already settled.
The back-and-forth vocal exchange between Grande and Monet gives the song a conversational quality that distinguishes it from the more solo-focused material in Grande's catalog. Both singers take turns adding to the narrative, building a picture of shared experience and shared perspective. This structural choice reinforces the friendship theme at every level: the song is not about one person narrating an experience while another provides musical accompaniment, but about two people genuinely contributing to a joint statement.
Culturally, "Monopoly" arrived at a moment when conversations about creative credit in popular music were intensifying. Questions about who writes the songs, who profits from them, and how collaborators are acknowledged publicly had become topics of mainstream interest. The song's release, which placed Monet visibly alongside Grande after years of behind-the-scenes work, was read by many observers as a deliberate and generous act of acknowledgment. Monet's presence on the track functioned as a form of public credit that liner notes and Spotify songwriter listings cannot fully replicate.
The themes of the song also intersect with broader conversations about women in the music industry, about who is allowed to take up space, assert power, and define the terms of their own careers. Both Grande and Monet had navigated industries and relationships where their autonomy was not always respected, and "Monopoly" can be read as a statement about having arrived at a position where that autonomy is no longer in question.
The casual delivery of potentially provocative content, including the identity line that generated so much press attention, is itself a form of cultural commentary. By treating what might have been framed as a big announcement as simply another verse in a breezy pop song, the artists implicitly critique the tendency to treat non-heterosexual identity as something requiring dramatic declaration rather than ordinary self-expression.
Taken as a whole, "Monopoly" is a song about freedom: freedom from competitive anxiety, freedom to acknowledge complex identity, freedom to choose one's creative collaborators and recognize them publicly, and freedom to release music on one's own terms without worrying overly much about where it lands on the charts. That freedom, presented as already won rather than still being fought for, is perhaps the most interesting and distinctive quality the song brings to the pop landscape of 2019.
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