Janelle Monàe and a Blast from the Past
A crush, a cover story, and the power of good music
Last month was the 15th anniversary of Janelle Monàe’s album The ArchAndroid. The day it came out I went to Best Buy and bought three copies of the CD: one for myself, one for my then good friend Matt who is now my husband, and one for my sister. When I was in line at the register, I couldn’t believe I was buying this CD for Matt and feared the CD would give away my secret that I’d had a crush on him for months. Three months after I bought him this CD, we started dating. So much of the love songs Janelle sang in the voice of their alter ego Cindy Mayweather went right along with my feelings about Matt. But I had been following Janelle Monàe’s career long before Matt and I met each other.
I have been a lover of Janelle Monàe’s music since the 2007 release of the EP The Chase. I was a music journalist then, covering a lot of Atlanta’s soul and indie music scene which led me to a cool, new artist that was causing a buzz in the city with their black and white uniform and characteristic pompadour. I wrote for the now defunct Southeast Performer Magazine and my editor commissioned me with the opportunity to interview Janelle Monàe for the cover. I kept physical copies of a lot of the articles that I wrote back then and I’m glad I did because many of those articles are no longer available online, including the one I’m sharing with y’all today. So let’s time travel a bit back to 2007.
You know how the story begins. It’s 1985 and Marty McFly pays Doc a visit, only to discover Doc’s been working on a time traveling sports car. Before you can say gigawatt, Marty’s driving a car the size of a Camaro to the year 1955. His mission: right the past and get back to the future.
Marty’s not the only one traveling time. Janelle Monàe is an anachronism; a welcome collision of era, sound, and fashion with her characteristic afro-pompadour, high-waist trousers, saddle shoes, and eccentric taste in music. An alternative soul vocalist who originally hit the music scene in 2005 as a protégé of Big Boi’s Purple Ribbon label, Monàe is about to bring new music from the future to the present on her new album Metropolis.
There’s no place like home, and as a Kansas City, Kansas native Monàe makes her home where the music is. Growing up in a small town with a father on drugs, Monàe learned to create her own world through her imagination. Music gave her a place to pour the hard knock stories she watched and experienced growing up. She ended up in Atlanta, figuring if the soulful city was big enough to house Outkast’s innovative sound might be big enough for her too.
“When I moved to Atlanta, I lived near the AUC (Atlanta University Center), in a boarding house with six other girls and I started writing music. I would go on dorm lounge tours and really give people me, as a song,” Monàe said.
While honing her songwriting and performing, Monàe met Wondaland producers, Chuck Lightning and Nate Wonder. The first time Lightning and Wonder heard Monàe they knew they wanted to work with her.
“As soon as that young lady opened her mouth, I was like aw, man, she is crazy! I remember watching the whole crowd lean forward in their seats and their mouths dropped. I could tell this was really an impactful thing. I made sure we got her information afterwards. She had asked me for a pen earlier and I was like, ‘a pen?! You need a record deal!” Wonder declared.
Wondaland produced Monàe’s first EP, an acoustic album titled, The Audition, on which Monàe built her college fan base. But Janelle wasn’t interested in producing the same sound over and over again.
“She is not the type to want to do anything that anybody else is doing. If somebody else is doing something she’ll be like hmm, let’s go over here and see if they have any green oranges,” Wonder said and laughed. “Anything that’s obtuse, abnormal, she’s going for that to see if she can make it her own.”
A chance meeting in an Atlanta alley with Big Boi led to Monàe’s appearance on Big Boi Presents Got Purp Vol. 2 singing the Wondaland produced, “Letting Go” and a dance cover of DeBarge’s “Time Will Reveal.” Monàe also appeared on Idlewild songs “Call the Law” and “In Your Dreams.” Monàe’s pure, rich vocal, reminiscent of Lena Horne, fit right in with Outkast’s throwback, new school vibe. Working with a group she had grown up admiring continued to fuel Monàe’s inspiration.
“I looked at Outkast and saw that they were accepted socially, and they were getting Grammys. But musically, it’s like they don’t care if they are accepted, even though they are. I was looking at people like Michael Jackson, Prince, and Outkast to do exactly what it is they were doing, right now,” Monàe revealed.
Instead of keeping her ear to the streets, it’s more like Monàe stays in tune to the scratch of old LPs, calling Buddy Holly one of her main influences.
“My competition is not with any artist that’s out right now. In my mind, I’m not trying to be better than what everybody else is doing,” Monàe disclosed. “I look to people like Elvis, Judy Garland, James Brown, and the people that have come before me. I’m just trying to be more funky than they are.”.
Next stop: Metropolis. A French-fair-inspired track led Monàe and the Wondaland producers to the Metropolis concept. The futuristic city draws some inspiration from the 1927 groundbreaking Fritz Lang film of the same name. Metropolis keeps Lang’s struggle between the “Haves” and the “Have-Nots,” but adds a compelling android Cindi Mayweather as its heroine. In Monàe’s Metropolis, androids, cyboys, and cyber girls are the citizens, and musical innovation doesn’t have walls or a ceiling.
“I traveled to Metropolis in 2719, and I had the chance to walk in an android’s shoes by the name of Cindi Mayweather,” Monae said with the demure chic of a classic starlet. “I learned a lot of life lessons there and it’s my job as an artist to tell everybody what’s going on. If we don’t try to focus on change we’re going to have a hard time progressing and moving forward in life.”
An album this futuristic couldn’t depend on traditional means for getting the music to its listeners. Monàe and the Wondaland producers formed the Wondaland Arts Society label, and have decided to divide the album into four separately released suites, with four or five songs on each, ending with one CD that will combine the music from each suite. Suite I: The Chase was released August 24.
Recording at Wondaland’s studio with its grass-like flooring, bubbling fish tank, and cotton candy and popcorn machines, Monàe and her Wondaland production compadres built the Metropolis sound with live instruments, void of obvious samples and recycled lyrics. The guitars, bass, and cello suspended from the wall testify to the string-laden sound of Suite I: The Chase, which also features vintage keyboard and moog.
“One of the greatest gifts that we’ve gotten from this Janelle Monàe project is watching people react to her music the way they have. Not just fans of her music, but other artists. She really is one of those artist’s artists, kind of like how Björk is to some people,” Lightning admitted.
On a steamy July day, Morehouse College’s Sale Hall is sprinkled with students and Janelle Monàe fans, or supporters as she likes to call them. Dressed in 1950s-inspired outfits from jocks to nerds to cool girls, they are hoping to garner a spot in Monàe’s first video and lead single, “Violet Stars Happy Hunting,” which showcases her alto bravado over sci-fi inspired beds of music.
Monàe sits to the side of the stage, taking the time to meet each one. Her team of creative people is all here, but it’s evident, even in the tune she considers her theme song, that she has a way she likes things done.
“Stevie Wonder’s ‘Girl Blue’ is one of my theme songs, because I’m very independent. What I’ve been able to do is to learn how to accept help,” Monàe confesses. “Learn how to always remain humble and if there’s anything I need, ask. The Wondaland Arts Society genuinely wants me to be a great person as well as an artist. People are here to help and ‘Girl Blue’ is speaking about letting people help you, and accepting love.”
Each group of auditioners is asked to dance to “Violet Stars Happy Hunting,” which swings a rocked out funk with a slight ‘60s twist. You can easily do the jerk to this music and many of those auditioning do. Whatever you do, your arms and legs have to be set free. If Monàe has her way, maybe your mind will too.
“I want people to feel comfortable within themselves and not feel like it’s cool to not read or not accept yourself for who you really are. I’m not going to compromise myself as a young lady just to be in a video or to get a record deal or any of those things. I have a huge responsibility to other young girls. I’m always conscious of the things that I say, how I dress, and the type of music that I put out,” Monàe answered.
Categories, labels, descriptions, and genres, Monàe doesn’t need ‘em. Instead she ascribes to an Andy Warhol mantra.
“I’m a huge Andy Warhol fan and he said always do your art. Don’t label it. Let everyone else figure out what they think it is, and while they’re trying to figure out what you’re doing, keep doing more art. I care more about my supporters than I care about being accepted by the music industry, or about being über famous,” Monàe said.
“Janelle is an incredible, all-around artist. She is not going to stop. She is going to keep pushing. She’s the apotheosis of a lot of things you’ve seen in music already,” Lightning said. “As long as people are willing to open the door and open their ears a little bit, everything will move forward. For us, it’s about changing the world.”
In ten years, if Janelle had to introduce you to her future self, she’s not even sure if she can tell you who that person is going to be.
“I may not even be alive in ten years, but I want people to know that I died trying to do as much as I could to help better the world. The world is going to change with or without me. But what I want to do is take it some type of direction musically to where people from all different walks of life have felt compelled to figure out their purpose in life,” Monàe replied.
And with that, her time machine arrives as she continues casting for a 1950s cyber hop set in the year 2719. Clearly Janelle Monàe’s time traveling has Marty McFly and Doc beat.
Thanks for reading and time traveling with me! Fun fact: I also appeared in Janelle Monàe’s music video for the song “Tightrope” if you’d like to check out the one time I was a dancer in a music video.
TAKE ACTION: RESIST in all the ways you can. As we are watching ICE continue to practice abusive power, check out this article on ways you can make a difference and stand in solidarity with our immigrant communities.
I’m listening to…”Next to You” by Erykah Badu and The Alchemist (I can’t wait for the album to drop!)
I’m watching…The Gilded Age!!!
I’m reading…Cicely Tyson’s autobiography Just As I Am
Things I’m working on…perfecting my peach cobbler