Monica Hot Dogs It For Oscar Mayer

05/25/2000 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(5/25/00, 10 a.m. ET) - Grammy Award-winning singer Monica appeared at New York City's Madison Square Garden to kick off a national advertisement campaign for the new Oscar Mayer Jingle Jam Talent Search. Jingle Jam will cross the U.S. searching for a new version of the famous Oscar Mayer wiener jingle. Contestants will range from four to ten years of age, with the winner receiving a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform the winning song with Monica, as well as a $20,000 college scholarship.

At the New York event, 19-year-old Monica used ceremonial bottles of ketchup and mustard to christen two new state-of-the-art Wienermobiles for the Oscar Mayer fleet. LAUNCH asked Monica why she chose to work with Oscar Mayer. "Our draw to each other was my background," she said. "My background was in talent shows; I was a talent show professional. I had done about 20 or 30 by the time I was 13 and, what I did was, I became comfortable in a setting where you never knew what to expect, which was audiences were always different and responses were always different. And I like the fact that Oscar Mayer were taking the opportunity to do that for other children who may not have had the opportunities in their town."

It has been some two years since Monica released The Boy Is Mine. LAUNCH asked the singer if fans could expect any new material from her soon. "Well, what I've done is I've kind of changed the direction for a minute, and I've been kind of focused on film," she said. "And I feel the change, the transition, pretty much kind of put a hold on everybody, musically -- going in and putting things together. But it also created a real positive energy because it made us all really want to strive to put out some great records for the end of this year, so I'll probably have out a single in late October."

-- Nick Tsolkas and Chad Dougatz, New York

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