Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Chicago Sun-Times
Entertainment Weekly	B−
The Guardian
Los Angeles Times
The New York Times	favorable
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
USA Today
The Village Voice	mixed

After the Storm is the fourth studio album by American recording artist Monica, first released on June 17, 2003 through J Records. Recording was handled by several producers including Jermaine Dupri, Missy Elliott, Rodney Jerkins, Jazze Pha, Soulshock & Karlin, BAM & Ryan, Bryan Michael Cox, and Kanye West. Originally intended for an 2002 release under the title All Eyez on Me, the album was delayed numerous times, following the leak to Internet file-sharing services and heavy bootlegging after its Japan-wide release. Monica subsequently recorded new tracks and released the album under the new title, After the Storm.

The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, Monica's first album to do so, and sold 186,000 copies in its first week. It produced three singles that attained Billboard chart success, including chart topper "So Gone", and has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of one million copies in the United States. After the Storm received generally mixed to positive reviews from music critics. As of November 2014, the album has sold 1,070,000 copies in the United States.

Following the release of her second album The Boy Is Mine (1998) and her contribution to "I've Got to Have It", a collaboration with Jermaine Dupri and rapper Nas, recorded for the soundtrack of the 2000 comedy film Big Momma's House, Monica took a hiatus from her recording career. During the hiatus, she tied up filming commitments on J. J. Abrams's prime time drama series Felicity and the theatrical film Boys and Girls and garnered a starring role in the MTV Films drama Love Song. In an interview with MTV News amid promotion for Oscar Mayer's Jingle Jam Talent Search contest in June 2000, Monica revealed that she was planning to start work on her third album throughout the summer season, with a first single to be released by October of the same year.

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