Interview with Janelle Monae
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Bathed in a sudden flood of lights, a young black female materializes out of the hushed darkness, quite unlike any performance artist expected to grace a Bad Boy Entertainment showcase. Janelle Monae stands aloft, a pompadoured sylph with doll-like features, thespian posture and twinkling dark eyes.

Then her golden voice pierces the silence, as she belts out with startling clarity, “I’m a girl from outer space…” In sync with android movements reminiscent of Blade Runner, an aesthetic likened to Prince crossbred with Grace Jones; all which connotes a fantastic retrofuturism.  Unbeknownst to the throng of people, Monae was here on a mission to change the face of R&B music.

Her show that night was a stunning production, touched with a cosmopolitan air; a performance that belied her humble place of origin.  For well before all the recent exposure from the music industry, Monae struggled as a young minority growing up in a Bible-Belt county of Kansas. She grew up in a harsh climate of poverty aggravated by her father’s debilitating drug abuse and the social limitations that existed for African American children in that region. Despite her bleak childhood, she found solace in her art and utilized it to transcend her circumstantial realities.

Much like Gonzo the Muppet, she created her own mythology; a fictitious diaspora, if you will, that traces back to the outer reaches of space. By defining herself the “weirdo,” Monae managed to rise above her boundaries and occupy an alter-reality honed by soulful music, science fiction and a guiding ethos for social change.  The self-proclaimed misfit’s fantastical efforts eventually led her down the yellow brick road straight out of Kansas and into the American Academy of Arts in New York.

Monae attended the cosmopolitan school, yet she felt still the stifling oppression of being typecast as an African American woman.  She realized her childhood dreams and pushed back the “emerald curtains” to find it was not what it was cracked up to be.

Although quite disillusioned, Monae didn’t want to stop there and was strong in her resolve that the only way to go about things would be to simply pave her own brick road–right out of theatre — to a universe of her own choosing, free of the confines of musical genres and even of time and space.

After embarking on her new adventure as a recording artist, Janelle Monae is on the verge of breaking out with Suites II and III of her Metropolis album. Already she has represented something that is fiercely passionate and fresh in the future of the pop music. With each subsequent step she has gained strength to challenge prescribed roles relegated to black female entertainers; she continues her work to expand upon those opportunities, a battle she fights to this very day in her music career. Monae was kind enough to sit down with Evil Monito to discuss her plans to transform the staid state of affairs in the pop-cultural arena.

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EM: I’m sure you’re getting lots of attention now that you’re releasing your album…

MONAE: Yes, I’m releasing Suites II and III of my album in January of ‘09.

EM: Let’s step back to the time before you started your music career. Prior to heading out to New York, what was it like growing up with your family in the Bible Belt of America?

It was most definitely a very conservative place. I have lots of family out there. I have almost fifty first cousins. My mother had eight sisters and two brothers. So of course, I was always surrounded by family and cousins my own age. As far as art was concerned, the area was not that culturally diverse and being an African American girl, I was clearly a minority…

EM: That signified something living in Kansas, right?

Yeah. I grew up in the poorest county out there: Wyandotte. It’s the name of a Native American princess. There were not a lot of resources, which was most definitely an issue because I wanted to do foreign exchange programs and expand my horizons. But I was heavily involved in talent shows and I was performing in a group called the Weirdos and we were always expressing ourselves on stage.

EM: Ahhh… Gonzo the Weirdo was my favorite character from Henson’s Muppets…

It made sense, as we were in a historically Republican county, and so it was natural to express ourselves using that band name. We just loved art and making art. I was maybe 11 or 12 years old at the time I was doing those things.

I stayed in the arts to release some of the pressures I had to deal with as a young child. My father was a drug addict and I had to experience the ups and downs, rises and falls of his life. Thankfully he’s clean now, but it was a rough journey…sometimes he’ll be in and out of jail. It was one of those things where I had to really grow up very fast and hit this problem head-on and be really strong for my little sister and my mom. So when I would win certain talent shows, I would help out to pay for their bills because they were left unpaid.

So growing up in an area that was disadvantaged helped me to cope [with] being around lots of difficult situations and to understand early on how I should act and how not to act. As a result, I feel like I’m a little bit more educated about life. It helped me to become a person of [discerning mind].

EM: So when finally left your life in Kansas and attended the American Musical Academy in New York City, you studied musical theatre and wanted to pursue a career on Broadway. Why did you ultimately end up changing your path?

Well, I didn’t want to be limited to the technique that I was taught at the American Musical Academy. I didn’t want to have the same standardized method and feeling of approaching art and expressing myself. So I left because I wanted to interpret art as how I view it in my mind. I wasn’t a big fan of all the typecasting that was prevalent in the world of theatre. I didn’t want to be so influenced by his or her teachings that I acted and sounded like every other actor; because really I had a lot of my own ideas swimming around in my own mind.

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EM: Do you see yourself going back to theatre? Or acting?

I’m making my own musical right now while writing my own music and performing on stage. I can’t say…but if there were a role that would suit me, it would be preferably science fiction. I love cutting edge sci-fi and fantasy flicks and would love to be involved with anything of that nature. Right now, I’m just focusing on music and honing my skills in that field.

EM: There are certain descriptors attached to your persona: futuristic rock/soul artist, the future of R&B. I also know there is a lot of pressure these days with the media world constantly shifting…how do you embrace and utilize technology as an artist?

I have my own recording label, The Wondaland Arts Society. [I've long accepted the fact that] technology is constantly ahead of us, because while you and I are sleeping, there are millions of people right now coming out with the next big thing that’ll push our generation further than before. Our company endeavors to push technology in music and be forward-thinking in our approach. With the advent of the Internet, we felt it important to come out with the Suite concept because we were growing up in an iPod generation where people are prone to cherry-picking their songs from albums.

I love the whole album listening experience. But a lot of people’s attention spans are really short so they don’t want to sit down and take in so much music that is already out there. Therefore I’ve split my album into sections released at different times.

EM: What is your philosophy on music?

I really couldn’t imagine myself from living in Kansas as a kid to being at this point where I’m at right now in my life. First of all, it is to remember that I am free; and that as an artist it’s important to express myself as boldly as I like. Also it is about being fearless and understanding that there are young girls like those in Darfur or this young lady in China who was incarcerated for three years for wearing punk ideologies and singing a song in her own house that wasn’t uplifting [of] the country. They put her in prison because they felt she was spreading unlawful behavior to the community.

I viewed this on CNN and thought to myself, ‘This woman can’t even sing her own song.’ So when you think about things like that…there is no possible way I’m not gonna get on that stage and consciously dispel my ideas. You got to exercise your right to be free. This country has barely been [racially] integrated as a society 50 years ago and people had fought hard for my freedom. So it’s up to me to maximize it.

I made a pact with myself to really go for it and use my life to create opportunities for people, especially those from my community. I feel the music business should celebrate our creative differences and encourage diversity. The boundaries put up by music genres should be erased. Furthermore I really want to help redefine the [limitless possibilities] of how an African American female artist can dress, sing or write. It is my dream to [take apart] those preexisting stereotypes.

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For more on this artist, visit: www.jmonae.com

Click To Purchase Metropolis The Chase Suite Special Edition