Victoria Monét's Jaguar II and Lucky Daye's Algorithm share a producer, a label, a sonic philosophy, and a moment. That producer is Dernst "D'Mile" Emile II, and the moment is right now, when two of the most carefully constructed R&B careers of the past decade are finally getting the mainstream attention they were built for. The argument writes itself once you hear both records back to back: D'Mile is the connective tissue, and Monét and Daye are the two clearest expressions of what his production philosophy sounds like when it finds the right voice.
Monét's Jaguar II arrived on August 25, 2023, on RCA Records, and it is her debut studio album in the fullest sense, the culmination of a Jaguar series she began with a 2020 EP. The album opens with "Smoke," a collaboration with Lucky Daye himself, released as the lead single on March 24, 2023. That choice of opener is not accidental. Daye's tenor wraps around Monét's lead with the ease of two people who have been in the same rooms, working with the same person, for years. The song is groovy and unhurried, and it sets the temperature for everything that follows. By the time the album reaches "On My Mama" at track seven, a horn-driven, body-positive anthem that interpolates Texas rapper Chalie Boy's 2009 "I Look Good," Monét has established a full sonic world: live instrumentation, disco-adjacent funk, and a vocal confidence that sounds earned rather than performed.
The Jaguar II tracklist runs eleven tracks and holds together with unusual discipline. Track four, "Alright," brings in KAYTRANADA for a bass-heavy detour that still fits the album's warmth. Track ten, "Hollywood," features Earth, Wind & Fire alongside Monét's daughter Hazel, with Philip Bailey contributing vocals and Verdine White playing bass on separate studio days. That detail matters: this is an album where the credits are part of the story. D'Mile produced the majority of the record under his Medinah Entertainment banner, and the result is lush, live-feeling R&B that draws from '70s funk and disco without becoming a costume party. At the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, Jaguar II won Best R&B Album. Monét also took home Best New Artist and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, three wins from seven nominations. "On My Mama" earned a Record of the Year nomination on its own.
Lucky Daye's relationship with D'Mile goes back further. The producer built Painted, Daye's debut album released May 24, 2019, from the ground up, writing and producing all thirteen tracks after the two met in Los Angeles. Painted earned Grammy nominations for Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song, and Best R&B Performance for "Roll Some Mo." The 2021 EP Table for Two won Best Progressive R&B Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Then came Candydrip on March 10, 2022, Daye's second studio album and his first to chart on the Billboard 200, debuting at number sixty-nine. Its lead single "Over" was his first entry on the Hot 100. The critical reception was strong, but the commercial footprint was still modest.
Algorithm, released June 28, 2024, changed that math. The fourteen-track album opens with "Never Leavin' U Lonely" and moves through a range that includes the rock-leaning "Soft," the duet "Blame" with Teddy Swims, and "Paralyzed" with British singer RAYE. The lead single, "That's You," was co-produced by D'Mile and Bruno Mars, and it became Daye's first number-one on the Adult R&B Songs chart. At the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, "That's You" won Best Traditional R&B Performance, and Algorithm was nominated for both Best R&B Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The album was also cited by Billboard, which gave Daye its inaugural Torchbearer Award in September 2024 for being what the organization called the "new age blueprint" in R&B.
D'Mile's own résumé explains why both careers sound the way they do. Born Dernst Emile II in Brooklyn, he became the first songwriter in Grammy history to win Song of the Year in two consecutive years: in 2021 for H.E.R.'s "I Can't Breathe" and in 2022 for Silk Sonic's "Leave the Door Open." He also won an Academy Award for co-writing "Fight for You" from Judas and the Black Messiah. His production signature is live-band warmth filtered through precise arrangement, and it is audible across every Monét and Daye project he has touched. The Silk Sonic comparison that reviewers reach for when describing Jaguar II is not coincidental: D'Mile produced that record too.
Monét came to D'Mile through Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, under whose wing both of them worked early in their careers. She spent years as one of pop's most in-demand songwriters, with credits on Ariana Grande's albums from Yours Truly through Positions, as well as Chloe x Halle's "Do It" and Brandy's "Rather Be." Daye, born in New Orleans and raised in a household where secular music was forbidden, spent years writing for artists including Keith Sweat, Ne-Yo, Ella Mai, and Mary J. Blige before his own recording career took hold. Both of them arrived at their solo work with a craftsperson's fluency in the tradition they were drawing from.
That shared background is what makes the Monét-Daye-D'Mile triangle feel like more than a production credit. These are three people who understand R&B as a form with rules worth knowing and worth bending. Jaguar II and Algorithm are not nostalgia projects. They are records made by people who have spent years inside the music, and the depth shows in the details: the way "Smoke" opens with both voices already in conversation, the way "That's You" earns its classic-soul feeling through arrangement rather than imitation. The Grammy voters noticed. So did the rooms.
