Janelle Monáe is a multi-faceted creator — which is apparent in her concept albums,
film roles, live performances, and signature style.
And behind her many honors and multiple Grammy nominations, lies a true classic American
origin story.
Here is her stunning transformation.
"I don't write these songs just for me.
I write them for people just like you"
Born in 1985, Monáe is a native of the Quindaro community of Kansas City — a settlement
founded by Native Americans and abolitionists that became a haven for African Americans,
according to Rolling Stone.
Her mother was a janitor, but Monáe's father struggled with substance abuse issues for
decades.
She said,
"My father is a recovering crack addict — he was in and out of prison — so I've seen
the ups and downs of drug addiction.
Things were taken from us growing up — I would win like $500 in a talent show and I
had to give it to my mom to help pay for the light bill and the gas bill."
Fortunately her father has been in recovery for many years, and they have since repaired
their relationship.
But despite her struggles, Monae's talent was shining through at a very young age — as
she won talent shows and snagged the leads in school musicals.
"Oh Janelle was such a cutie.
She was always singing something.”
Monáe was even kicked out of church once for breaking into a rendition of Michael Jackson's
"Beat It" in the middle of the service.
Clearly her creativity could not be contained.
"Oh my God.”
In addition to all of that, Monáe was also a participant in a young playwrights' program
as a teenager, according to The New York Times.
By the time she graduated from high school in the early 2000s, she was ready to discover
what was next.
Once she finished high school, Monáe was accepted at the American Musical and Dramatic
Academy in New York City, and she headed off to the Big Apple to study musical theater,
according to The New York Times.
While she was there, Monáe shared a room with her older cousin at Amsterdam and 140th,
as she was unable to afford to live on campus.
Her cousin worked nights at the post office, so the two slept in shifts in their small
apartment.
Monáe did receive some financial help from her church congregation, and she supplemented
that by working shifts as a maid.
But it wasn't long before something new came calling…
While Monáe was making a go of it in New York, one of her best friends was studying
in a historically black college town in Atlanta — and that friend told Monáe all about
it, according to The New York Times.
After hearing about the lively local culture, Monáe decided it was time to make a change.
She told The Quietus,
"I wanted to really feel inspired and start things with Janelle Monáe.
I didn't want to get dictated to by anybody, except for just listening to and accomplishing
my own heart, to get in contact with the things that made me unique."
"What I see all the time is that the artists in Atlanta genuinely want each other to win"
Once Monáe settled in Atlanta, it quickly became apparent that she had made the right
move.
She added,
"There are so many other like-minded individuals in Atlanta.
I have a creative family down there — it consists of visual artists, performance artists,
screenwriters, graphic novelists — you name it, they help make Atlanta special for me."
It didn't take long for Monáe to find her groove.
She moved into a boarding house, established an art collective, enrolled at Georgia State
University's Perimeter [per-IM-ih-ter] College, and began working on her own music, according
to The Times.
Monáe also recorded a CD that she distributed, performed live on campus, and uploaded to
her Myspace page.
"I would be sellin my cd's and then I would walk down here, right here, right on these
library steps I used to play the guitar and perform my music.”
After that, Monáe started getting noticed by the big shots in the local music scene,
including Big Boi from Outkast.
That, in turn, caught the ear of none other than Sean Combs, who was immediately interested
in her work.
He remembered,
"I just knew she was going to be important to music and culture.
It was the same sort of feeling I had when I first heard Biggie or Mary J. Blige, and
I wanted to help introduce this artist to the world."
Monáe signed to Bad Boy Records in 2008.
"He opened up doors for me.”
Now well-established in the Atlanta arts scene, Monáe set to work on creating her first full-length
album, The ArchAndroid, which she released in 2010.
The album featured the sonic journey of Cindi Mayweather, Monáe's alter-ego, who was born
on her Metropolis EP — thanks to the help of her collaborators Nate "Rocket" Wonder
and Chuck Lightning.
She explained to The Quietus,
"We love the film industry and everything that's about creating a big idea, a concept
album.
We're into movies, and we wanted to create an 'emotion picture' with The ArchAndroid,
so we did that."
"I love science fiction, I love the arts… my goal has never been to fit into any type
of category.”
Meanwhile, doors were flying open for Monáe.
She toured with industry heavyweights No Doubt and Bruno Mars, became a CoverGirl model,
and collaborated with Erykah Badu and Solange Knowles, as noted by The New York Times.
In addition, she found a truly royal mentor: Prince.
She told Rolling Stone,
"He said he wanted to give me advice before I got too involved within the industry.
And that if I ever needed to speak with him, he's always available."
Monáe and Prince remained friends until his untimely death in 2016.
Three years after dropping her first full-length album, Monáe released her second album in
2013, The Electric Lady.
Born out of self-exploration and a curious desire to paint the same female form for months
in a row, Monáe found the name for the album in a conversation with her therapist.
She told Billboard,
"What I wanted to do was create an album that deals with this concept of the Electric Lady.
And a world where these electric ladies were realizing their super powers and doing self-realization
into self-actualization and nurturing the community through their gifts and their unique
perspectives on life."
"Hi I'm Janelle Monae, also known as Cindi Mayweather, also known as Wendy Bangs.”
Solange Knowles, Prince, Miguel, Esperanza Spalding, and Erykah Badu all collaborated
with Monáe on the album, on which she showcased the true breadth of R&B.
She told the outlet,
"Musically I wanted to create an album that was rooted in R&B but make sure I was capturing
the diversity in R&B music."
While Monáe was busy killing it in the music industry, movie scripts began arriving in
her mailbox.
But it wasn't until 2016 that she made her film debut in the 2017 Academy Award winner
for best picture, Moonlight.
Monáe connected instantly with the script, which resonated with her deeply.
"Stop putting your head down in my house.
You know my rule.
It's all love and all pride in this house.”
She told The Guardian,
"I had a strong visceral to the Moonlight script, partly because I felt I knew all of
these characters.
[…] I've played the role of Teresa in real life: my family and friends always have a
shoulder to lean on with me."
Moonlight wasn't the only film Monáe starred in during 2016 that received a ton of Oscar
buzz.
That same year, she appeared in Hidden Figures, a critically acclaimed and Academy Award-nominated
film about three black female mathematicians who played vital roles in the NASA space program
in the '60s.
"I had no idea they hired… there are quite a few women working in the space program.”
Based on a true story, the film brought the lives of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan,
and Mary Jackson to the big screen for the first time — and showed just how important
their work was, in a time when they faced serious barriers because of their race and
gender.
"Ladies, that there is a God ordained miracle.”
Monáe signed on for the film for many of the same reasons she accepted a role in Moonlight:
to uplift the LGBT community, empower women, and showcase those typically under-represented
in movies.
In an interview with Atlanta magazine, she explained,
"As an artist, I want to ensure that moviegoers see different kinds of black women being portrayed
on-screen.
Representation in film is extremely important.
I knew I had to drop what I was doing to be a part of them."
On top of having a successful music career and scoring leading roles in major films,
Monáe is also an activist and advocate.
"It's important that I tell my story and that I tell stories about us in the future, and
redefine what it means to be African American in the future, and where we can go.”
She's attended protests for the Black Lives Matter movement, released a protest anthem
in support of the black men and women who were killed by police officers and vigilantes,
and threw her support behind Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
Obviously, Monáe is not afraid to speak her mind, especially on issues that matter to
her.
"An injustice done to you, is an injustice done to me.”
Monáe also created a grassroots nonprofit called Fem the Future, with the goal of creating
employment opportunities for women who are in the arts.
She explained to Ebony magazine,
"[I wanted] to create a platform to shine light on women and their talent, whether it's
behind the scenes or in front of the camera.
[…] A beautiful future is a future where women are included in [all] different aspects."
In April of 2018, Monáe dropped an album that shook the music industry from the ground
up: Dirty Computer.
The Grammy-nominated record is the third full-length release from Monáe, and was accompanied by
a 48-minute film of the same name.
The album features an impressive list of collaborators, such as Pharrell Williams, Brian Wilson, Zoë
Kravitz, and Grimes, and the influence and legacy of Prince is palpable.
Not only is the album star-studded and critically acclaimed, but it's also the first time Monáe
put herself out there as a completely vulnerable human instead of as an android character.
She also came out as queer, telling Billboard,
"When I come home at night and take off my makeup and my performance uniform, I still
am a young, black, queer woman from America who grew up with working class parents.
So it was just important to speak from that perspective and, in the process, let people
know that it was important for Dirty Computers to feel like we have a community."
Remember the art collective that Monáe founded when she moved to Atlanta in the early 2000s?
Not only is it still around and thriving, but The Wondaland Art Society is expanding.
In late 2018, Deadline reported that Wondaland Pictures had inked a first-look production
agreement with Universal Pictures.
And that's on top of its Wondaland Records arm.
The mission of Wondaland Pictures is to highlight stories that historically haven't been front
and center.
Monáe shared in an interview with NPR,
"There are a lot of other people that I respect and admire, like Issa Rae and Lena Waithe
and Jordan Peele, who are also pushing forward underrepresented voices.
I just hope, and Wondaland hopes, to to push culture forward and redefine how we are viewed.
I want to make movies the dirty computers can feel proud of."
"Welcome to the future.”
After a banner 2018, and on the heels of her performance at Coachella in 2019, the future
is looking bright for Janelle Monáe.
She's slated to appear in several movies — and of course, there will be new music on its
way if the singer's prolific track record is any indication.
"The great thing about being an artist and being a creative is there's no wrong way.
Like nobody can tell me what I just did was wrong."
But one thing everyone can count on is that Monáe will continue to lift up black women
and work to give them a louder voice.
She told The Quietus,
"We're not all monolithic, us young black women, and we have our own ideas and concepts
— we're into science fiction, we're into so many things, and we should be constructive
and unapologetic about who we are.
I don't apologize to anybody about the kind of artist I am.
Nor will I allow anybody to define who I am either."
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