Muni Long is all about maintaining her peace above seeking vengeance, even when she feels wronged by others.
“I’m going through a lot in my personal life, relationship-wise, [and] career-wise. There are a lot of people that I would be justified in being angry with [in] how they handled me,” Long tells Rated R&B over Zoom. “Instead, I’ve been doing personal growth and realizing anger, disgust, betrayal, [and] any of those emotions only tell me what I need to get away from. Other than that, they don’t serve me. They don’t help me reach my goals.”
Over the last few years, Long has seen the fruits of her labor blossom. The artist and songwriter, formerly known as Priscilla Renea, spent more than a decade working on launching her solo career while penning songs for stars like Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, and K. Michelle, among many others.
In 2020, she reintroduced herself to the world as Muni Long with her first EP, Black Like This. The project contained a high dose of silky grooves like “Midnight Snack” and “Polaroid” with snappy bangers like “Breakin Up” and “Waffle House.”
Long struck gold with her third EP, Public Displays of Affections, the parent project of her hit “Hrs & Hrs.” The devotional anthem went viral on TikTok and other social media platforms, landing Long her first Billboard Hot 100 entry, a No. 1 hit at urban radio and ultimately awarded a Grammy for Best R&B Performance.
If “Hrs & Hrs” was Long’s entry into mainstream R&B, “Made For Me” solidified her stay. The tenderhearted track was released in September 2023, marking the start of Long’s new era of music.
Since its release, “Made For Me” has spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B Digital Song Sales chart, achieved a platinum certification from the RIAA, and reached No. 1 on three different radio formats.
Between those accolades, Long continues to leave an indelible mark in R&B. She isn’t allowing any emotional baggage to slow her down her progress. “I try not to sit in those feelings. Those vibrations block your manifestation,” she states. “If I’m really trying to go someplace with my music and be serious about changing the trajectory of my life — traveling the world, using my gifts — then I have to let it go.”
On her second album, Revenge, Long pours some of her experiences, particularly with love, across 14 tracks. One would assume that an album titled as such is filled with spiteful songs targeting those who wronged her, but it’s not. “As much as I want to cuss somebody out or tell everybody, ‘Look what this motherf****r did to me,’ I don’t want to block my blessings,” she declares.
The album is less about being vindictive as it is cathartic. “I don’t want revenge, I promise / I don’t need that on my conscience,” she sings on the title track. Throughout the song, she sings about being mistreated and gaslit by a lover. Despite it all, she would rather end things amicably than engage in unnecessary drama (“I’d rather make amends”).
Revenge undertakes an arduous journey through the tides of love. The opener, “Superpowers,” which interpolates Brian McKnight’s “The Only One For Me,” reads like a letter penned to a future lover. The tender piano mingles with dripping snaps and muted drum pulses as Long envisions, “I know the day we meet / You will be the one for me.” Yet, lines like, “How come my superpowers don’t work on you and me?” foreshadow a stormy ride ahead.
The heartwarming “Made For Me” is an ode to soul mates, while “Make Me Forget” starts to see challenges in a relationship. However, as Long has indicated before, she doesn’t want to pour into negativity.
On the D’Angelo-inspired “Make Me Forget,” she sings, “Though we might disagree / Don’t say nothing you don’t mean.” Long previously explained, “It’s a love letter. It says, ‘You’re not perfect. We’ve got a lot of things to work on, but can we focus on the amazing feeling we have when we’re together?”
After delivering a soaring vocal performance on the title track, Long shifts the mood on “Reverse (Interlude).” The 78-second track is a laidback groove that serves as the album’s intermission.
The trunk-rattling “Bessie” immediately follows. Here, Long breaks away from relationship talk to celebrate a close friend who has stuck by her through thick and thin. “That’s my BFF / That’s my sis / Sister from another mister / That’s my twin,” she sings on the anthem for best friends.
“Played Yourself” is a Jersey club-inspired bop that is also a kiss-off to a former lover who tries crawling back into the picture. “When your ex keep callin’ ’cause his new chick borin’ /’ Ain’t no spinnin’, stay your ass over there,” she sings over a pulsating beat.
The GloRilla-assisted “Leave My Baby Tonight” is another catchy track that also reaffirms Long’s commitment to protecting her peace. “I’m gon’ leave my baby tonight / I won’t argue / I won’t fight,” she proclaims.
A ticking clock joins a somber bass on the penultimate track, “Waste No Time,” during which Long sings about how short life is and how she would rather focus on the positive. “I don’t want to fight / Let’s make love and memories tonight,” she insists. Again, it speaks to the album’s running theme of Long’s philosophy on revenge. “The best revenge is success, and continuing to show up, continuing to win, and living my best life,” she previously stated.
Long rounds out the album with “Ruined Me,” a song that she previewed on Chris Brown’s 11:11 Tour and her latest single to make an impact at R&B radio. She sings over weeping strings and moping bass about feeling defeated by love. “After you, I’ll probably never love again / This kind of heartbreak don’t ever end,” she laments.
The gutwrenching ballad was the last song recorded for the album, and it happened spontaneously. The song’s producer, Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman, says he played the instrumental for Long while they were working on other music for another artist.
“Her album was done, and it was going to mixing. I played her this beat, and she wrote the song right there,” Gitelman tells Rated R&B. “She’s like, ‘Gitty. If we could get the stems over, this could actually be on the album, even though my album is literally done.’ She’s like, ‘This needs to be on the album.’ She wanted to get some sh*t off her chest, so I just provided the soundtrack.”
Below, Muni Long talks about her experience on Chris Brown’s 11:11 Tour, her philosophy on time, and her new album Revenge.
You recently wrapped up your stint as a special guest on Chris Brown’s 11:11 Tour. How was your experience being on the road this summer?
It was my first big tour. Man, it was a really cool experience. Actually. You know what? That’s not true. I went on tour with Akon on [Usher’s] OMG Tour as his second assistant years ago. But it was totally different now, being one of the principal artists. There’s a lot of work. For me, I don’t know how everybody else felt, but I never really got to turn off because even when I’m on the bus with my team, I still have to be a certain way, not how I would be at home, you know?
When I’m at home, I’m very quiet. I could go all day without talking. But you can’t do that when you are like a close-knit family team. I’m completely at the disposal of others. It is a very different experience than just doing a [red] carpet for 45 minutes, talking to people, sitting down [or] watching whatever you’re watching or you perform, and then you go home. It’s not like that at all.
You previewed “Ruined Me” and “The Baddest” during your tour set. How did you decide which songs to preview from the album?
I thought about what songs people know me for, what songs are popular, and how I could fit who I wanted to be on stage. There’s some fast songs on [the album]. There’s some vibey stuff. I just didn’t fit the whole sandwich. It wasn’t that hard to narrow it down because I got “Made for Me,” “Hrs & Hrs,” “Time Machine,” [and] “Another,” those songs kind of have like a mid-tempo vibe.
Speaking of “Made For Me,” the song has really taken a life of its own. I’ve seen so many viral videos of packed arenas from other concerts singing along to the song, even at concerts you’re not part of. Did you ever imagine it would become such a hit while you were creating it?
It’s so funny. My dad was just telling me that my mom was watching something online, where exactly what you said, I’m nowhere in the building, but they are singing “Made for Me,” down. Even other artists have put it in their shows, and they’re singing it like booking shows off the singing. Man, for me, it’s crazy. So no, I didn’t; I just knew that I really liked the song, and I really wanted to hear it again and again. I said the same thing about “Hrs & Hrs.” It’s certain songs that I’ll get in my car and be like, “I got to put this on before I pull out the driveway.” Even my son, he’s not even two, can barely talk but he be like, “Body-body, skin-skin,” like that’s so crazy. These little kids be singing my music, man. Anytime the babies [mess] with it, that’s how you know.
What was your mindset going into recording Revenge?
I’ve been working on this album for a while. I didn’t know what it was going to be called. It actually had a couple of different titles. It wasn’t until I got the last couple of songs that I was like, “I know what I want to call it, and I know what the theme is going to be.” I never really have had a clear, you know, “This is the theme of the album, and this is what we’re going to do before we make the songs.” I always write and let the music tell me where it wants to go. That’s what I did with this one too. It took me about a year and a half.
On “30s,” you sing about the fear of being alone at a time when society deems that people should be settled down. What inspired that song?
It was a rough time in my marriage. I’m like, “Damn. I spent my whole twenties being married [and] being in a relationship.” Nobody wants to start over. Even if you know the situation is not good for you, you’d be like, “Can we just make this work? Because we’ve settled [and] have a life together.” I think it was a genuine feeling of, even being married, I didn’t want to be alone at 30 years old like, “Well, I guess I got to start looking around.”
Anybody who I played it for — in their 20s, older in their 40s — they all clutch their chest like, “Damn, you in my business.” I think everybody knows that feeling no matter if you’re happily married now — because sometimes you could be by yourself in a committed relationship. I think everybody can relate to that feeling.
You tend to reference time in your music, whether you’re slowing down the clock with “Hrs & Hrs,” rewinding it on “Time Machine,” or racing against it on the new songs “Waste No Time” and “30s.” Does the concept of time inspire you creatively?
That’s a great question. I do use time a lot. I think it’s because I don’t actually have a concept of it. I just be like, “What day is it? Oh damn. OK. Yeah.” I’m just living. That’s really interesting to me. Even speaking about like a song like “Time Machine,” if you were to ask somebody when they would go back to, they’re not going to say noon on August 12, 1992. They’re going to be like, “I want to go back to fifth grade.” It’s more about the moment that they wish they could change or the choice they wish they didn’t make. Time is funny to me. It’s like, “Who cares?”
I look at time as a place in the universe. Just like you would go, “Let’s meet at the McDonald’s on the corner of such and such.” That’s what time is to me, “Let’s talk at one o’clock.” That’s like a place to me. I do write about time a lot, though. Like, “Damn, you always talking about a clock; you need to come out with a watch line or some s**t” (laughs).
“Make Me Forget” is your first single to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart. What does this mean to you?
I’m super grateful. I know how hard it is to get attention as an artist these days because there [are] so many people. Out of the 30,000 songs that get released a week or something insane like that, not only have my songs risen to the top of that pile but then they’re actually going to radio. These opportunities are less and less as the days go by. The value and importance of music is slowly being eroded. There was a time when people felt like there would never be another superstar [and] that “the mainstream artist is dead.” Like, it’s just viral artists, viral music and viral songs now. It’s not even about a brand. It’s just about the song.
I’m extremely blessed to be able to carve a lane for myself. When “Hrs & Hrs” came out, so many people copied it. I’m not the first person to do a three-four time soulful ballad. But I am the first person in a long time to repopularize that sound and make it mainstream. If you [had] told me they would’ve been playing ballads in the strip club, that’s unheard of. The only song they were playing was Tevin Campbell’s “Can We Talk,” and other than that, they was not playing ballads in the club. So I was blown away when I saw it with “Hrs & Hrs.” Blown away with what happened with “Made For Me.”
The fact that people are now accepting another one from me that’s a ballad feels amazing. It’s like, “Thank you for allowing me to not only represent my own sound and my own space but to prove to motherf*****s, ‘You don’t know what these people. Shut up [and] stop trying to tell us.’” The success and people loving the music [is] all a part of why my label partner keeps going back to radio and supporting me and my choices for what songs I want to put out. Having a chance to put these kinds of songs in the marketplace is because the public is responding. I’m very grateful for that.
You teamed up with GloRilla for “Leave My Baby Tonight.” What led to this collaboration, and what was your reaction when you heard GloRilla’s verse?
I love Glo. I think she’s super funny and her punchlines make me laugh. Just thinking of female artists on the rise that I can collaborate with, I really love her perspective. She’s feminine but also real. She raps about more than sex and her body. She was a natural fit for me. When I heard her verse, I was blown away because it was super catchy, but she was also singing. Since I got the record a year ago, I’ve been crossing my fingers that she wouldn’t give anybody a record singing, and she hasn’t. I’m the first!
“Bessie” is a bop that’s a new anthem for best friends. What do you believe makes an ideal best friend?
Somebody who knows how to leave me alone when I want to be left alone, not a hater, encourages you and tells you the truth.
What moved you to close the album with “Ruined Me”?
Honestly, it was the last song that I had written and we already had the track listing and didn’t want to change it.
What do you want listeners to take away from your album Revenge?
I hope they get a couple lessons. Maybe feel like they got to know me a little bit better. I hope they have a couple favorites on there that they go back to. I really try to make no-skip albums that you could just put on and let it play. I hope they f**k with it. I’m claiming I’ve made the R&B album of the year, so that’s what we want everybody to think or feel, should I say.
Stream Muni Long’s Revenge album below.