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Janelle Monáe: Starlight Express :: Janelle Monáe makes alien music from the most familiar sounds on earth.

By Jason Newman   Photography by Eric Vogel

06/30/08 :: URB 154

“With Cindi Mayweather, she’s an Alpha Platinum 9000, the deluxe of her androids. She’s programmed to work, perform, sing and cater to everyone else. Androids are not to fall in love, but she does with a robo-zillionaire by the name of Anthony Greenwood, whose parents started the robotics industry.”

To be honest, if Janelle Monáe uttered these sci-fi-futurisms at the start of our interview and not towards the end, I’d be a little frightened. Earnest talks of cyborgs and androids are usually reserved for people in white jackets and musicians late in their careers discovering New Age, kabbalah or whatever other plane of existence they’re currently on.

But after an hour with the young singer in a Brooklyn coffee shop, three blocks from where she’ll be shooting her first national cover for this mag, it all makes sense. Mayweather and Greendown are at the center of Metropolis: The Chase, a futuristic concept EP released independently last year and re-released (with added songs) by Bad Boy this summer.

With its bizarre mix of cabaret, soul, funk, opera, pop and hip-hop—and titles like “Cybertronic Purgatory”—generic R&B singer 101 she is not. Even with a scant catalog (so far), Monáe’s music places her squarely in the “musical kitchen sink” category with former URB cover stars OutKkast and Gnarls Barkley. Go back a few decades further and you’ll find another generation of ancestors who followed an interstellar muse—George Clinton and Sun Ra—for whom space is the place where one can escape.

Dorothy may have worried about a tornado and some bitch stealing her dog, but growing up in Wyandotte County, KS, where one-quarter of the people under 18 live below the poverty line and the per-capita income of $16,000 is one of the lowest in the state, Monáe had real issues invading her childhood.

“My parents never owned a house,” says Monáe. “I shared a room with my sister until I graduated [high school.] My stepfather had a lot of substance abuse in the home and, as a result, we were not fiscally responsible as a family. My biological father and my mom were never together, but he was on drugs as well, so I dealt with two fathers who had substance abuse problems.”

When a cousin whom Monáe worshipped began singing, she followed suit, to the point where the then 12-year-old singer was banking $500-$1000 from talent shows. “I would use the money to help with my outfits and give my mom money to help with the light bills,” she says.

With a struggling family, Monáe frequently retreated into the world of musical theatre (think Disney scores and Rodgers & Hammerstein) and her own imagination, creating alternate, fantastical universes in her mind that, consciously or not, would lay the groundwork for her future musical efforts.

CONTINUES

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