The Moment
If you grew up arguing over who sang which part of “The Boy Is Mine,” this is your Super Bowl.
At the Dec. 6 stop of their joint Boy Is Mine tour at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Monica and Brandy turned a stacked R&B night into a full-blown Whitney Houston love letter.
The show opened with Jamal Roberts, the Season 23 winner of American Idol, easing everyone in with a soulful set and literal roses handed out in the crowd. Very old-school showman, very “let me make every woman in this arena feel like the main character.”
Then came a curveball: instead of the advertised Mya, surprise guest Keyshia Cole hit the stage in head-to-toe Gucci, running through the songs that basically scored every mid-2000s breakup: “Love,” “Let It Go,” “Enough of No Love,” plus her verse from Sean “Diddy” Combs’ 2007 hit “Last Night.”
Kelly Rowland followed, in a red, two-piece set that sounded as good as it looked. She blended her solo staples like “Motivation,” “Like This” and “Dilemma” with Destiny’s Child classics, delivering exactly the kind of sing-every-word nostalgia this crowd paid for.
But the night’s real chill-up-the-spine moment came when the women united onstage to perform “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” in honor of their mentor, the late Whitney Houston. Reports from the arena describe it as the emotional peak of the show, a rare moment where nostalgia, grief and joy all lived in the same chorus.
The Take
To me, this wasn’t just a tribute song. It was three decades of R&B history hugging it out in the middle of a Texas arena.
Brandy and Monica spent half their careers haunted by that “feud” narrative from 1998, while Whitney was the North Star for all of them. Seeing her protegee (Brandy), her genre daughters (Monica and Keyshia), and her pop-R&B little sister (Kelly) come together on Whitney’s signature “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” hits different – especially if you’re over 35 and remember when all of these women ruled your radio presets.
This is what live music is doing so well right now: serving as group therapy for a generation that grew up on divas, drama and CDs in the car. Instead of a somber ballad, they chose Whitney in her most joyful, neon-bright era. It’s like having a memorial where everyone shows up in sequins instead of black – grief wrapped in glitter, with a beat you can actually move to.
And let’s not ignore the optics: women who were once framed as rivals, plus another powerhouse who survived her own girl-group narrative, all standing shoulder to shoulder under Whitney’s name. It quietly kills the old tabloid storyline that two Black women can’t share a lane without a catfight.
On a practical level, it’s also just smart. This tour is already a nostalgia magnet. Add a Whitney Houston moment and you’ve turned a ticket into a memory people will be retelling for years: “Remember when Brandy, Monica and Kelly Rowland sang ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ and the whole arena lost it?”
Receipts
Confirmed
- A December 12, 2025 entertainment report on the Fort Worth show describes the Dickies Arena date, the lineup (Jamal Roberts, Keyshia Cole, Kelly Rowland, then Brandy and Monica), and the Whitney Houston tribute performance of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).”
- Past interviews and coverage over the years have documented Whitney Houston’s mentorship of Brandy, especially around their work together on the 1997 TV movie Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and her broader influence on Monica and other ’90s R&B singers.
Unverified / Not Yet Confirmed
- Any talk of a full, future Whitney-themed tour segment, a live album, or an official concert film is fan wish-casting at this point. No official announcements have been made.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
Quick refresher: Brandy and Monica crashed into pop culture in 1998 with their duet “The Boy Is Mine,” which spent 13 weeks at No. 1 and instantly sparked rumors of behind-the-scenes tension. Over the years, those whispers turned into a full lore of “who didn’t like who,” even though both women have since said they were young, under pressure and often pitted against each other.
Whitney Houston, who died in 2012, loomed large over all of them. She mentored Brandy directly, famously playing her fairy godmother in Cinderella, and set the template for the big-voiced, emotional R&B sound Monica, Keyshia and so many others built careers on. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” is one of Whitney’s most beloved hits – upbeat, fizzy and still a guaranteed floor-filler at weddings, reunions and, apparently, 2025 arena tours.
In recent years, nostalgia tours have become the sweet spot for fans who grew up in the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s. We want the songs, the stories and, increasingly, the healing – the sense that the artists we grew up with have grown up too. This Whitney moment sits right in that pocket.
What’s Next
So where does this go from here?
For now, it sounds like the Whitney tribute is a centerpiece of this Boy Is Mine tour stop and very likely a staple of the rest of the dates. Fans will be watching social clips closely to see how the performance evolves from city to city and whether any other surprise guests pop up.
If audience reaction stays this strong, don’t be shocked if we eventually see an official live release or a professionally filmed performance built around the tribute, especially given how much streaming loves a nostalgia moment. But again: that’s prediction, not promise.
What feels certain is this: the appetite for women-led R&B nostalgia – with a side of emotional closure – is nowhere near done. Brandy and Monica turning a long-mythologized rivalry into a shared Whitney Houston altar might be one of the smartest, most satisfying second acts we’ve seen from ’90s stars in a long time.
Would you shell out for tickets to see this tour just for the Whitney tribute alone, or is the whole ’90s R&B package what sells it for you?
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