Singers and performers always get all of the glory, but what about the people who work behind the scenes? What about the other people who are involved in making the music behind the scenes, like songwriters? Well, here is the story of a singer who used songwriting to rise in the music industry, and she goes by Muni Long.
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The Beginning
Muni Long, born as Priscilla Renea, on September 14th,1988. She was born in Vero Beach, Florida, but was raised in Gifford.
Renea has been writing music and singing for basically her whole life, singing as early as 2-years-old and writing her first song as young as 8-years-old (Vinyl). As a youth, she used to post her song covers on YouTube, one being a video where she sang the words to a dictionary. Using the words and definitions to make a witty rap was quite the creative idea, and it garnered the 18-year-old video 1.2 million views.
From Flop To Success
Once her song covers started gaining attention, Renea appeared on the show “Say What Karaoke” in 2007. This led to her name becoming bigger in the industry and ended up getting her signed to Capitol Records at the age of 21. In 2009, she dropped her first album Jukebox, but it flopped, only selling about 1,200 copies within the first week. Whether it was due to bad timing or poor marketing, the album simply didn’t hit the mark.
After her album was a bust, Renea turned to songwriting. She was able to work with many well known artists including Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, and more. Some songs you may not know she had a hand in include “Timber” (2013) by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha, “Worth It” (2015) by Fifth Harmony, and “California King Bed” (2011) by Rihanna.
Back To Making Music
Renea eventually decided that she wanted to take on making her own music again, and decided she needed to rebrand herself. According to an interview with Jennifer Hudson, Renea came across the stage name “Muni” through research. After her husband suggested that she pronounced it “Money,” she added the “Long” as an affirmation to herself.
In 2022, Muni Long released the song “Hrs and Hrs.”
The song went viral on TikTok with over 2 million videos using the audio. The song also got a Platinum certification, racked up over 1 billion streams, and made it to #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Muni Long). Since then, she has earned multiple awards for her music including two IHeartRadio Music awards, both in 2023 and 2025. She also came out with her album Revenge in 2024 in which her hit song “Made for Me” made an appearance. This song also got her a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 2023.
Her star continues to rise, recently wrapping up her appearances on The Boy Is Mine tour with Brandy and Monica.
Image Credit: Unique Nicole / Contributor | Getty Images
