On a Zoom call from a hotel room in Washington DC, Janelle Monáe looks every inch the modern music icon: oversized designer sunglasses perched on her nose, a peach beret atop her long, dreadlocked hair and a matching crop top with one word emblazoned across the chest: Pleasure.
Monáe has reinvented both her style and sound over the past two decades, since she was discovered on the Atlanta scene by OutKast’s Big Boi in the mid-noughties. Her series of futuristic, forward-thinking concept albums saw her inhabit an alter ego by the name of Cindi Mayweather, an android in a dystopian universe who goes on the run after falling in love with a human. Beyoncé's Single Ladies this is not.
[ Janelle Monáe makes an electric returnOpens in new window ]
Now, the 37-year-old Kansas City native has arrived at a point in her career and her life where she is emerging from behind the Mayweather persona and embracing herself, her sexuality and her sensuality. She has dubbed it her #freeassmuthafucka era, and a quote from a recent Rolling Stone profile went viral: “I’m much happier when my titties are out and I can run around free.” The title of her fifth album, The Age of Pleasure, also sums it up succinctly. The album’s opening song, Float, sets the tone nicely, with Muhammad Ali-inspired lyrics such as: “I used to walk into the room head down/ I don’t walk, now I float.”
“I think I’ve always kept a pretty free mindset,” she shrugs, smiling confidently. “With that being said, though, I do value my time here on Earth, and I want to make that Earth experience as pleasurable as possible for myself, and for the people that I love. And I think what you’re hearing is just me, owning all of me; walking in all of me, comfortably. And I also feel safe enough to do that. There may have been moments in my life – because of society, or societal pressures, or the way non-binary folks are viewed, or the way queer people and black people have been viewed in this country – I’ve had to sort of like, block all that out, and get really centred with myself. And I’m just good with [being] me.” She smiles. “I know that nobody is being harmed in the making of Janelle Monáe.”
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We had sex maybe once a month. The constant rejection was soul-crushing, it felt like my ex didn’t even like me
She has described the album as a “love letter to the [African] diaspora”, an influence you can hear on songs such as Black Sugar Island, while Float features Seun Kuti and the legendary Egypt 80. Monáe has said the album is both her “blackest and queerest” album to date (she came out publicly as non-binary last year and uses she/her and they/them pronouns). With that in mind, she says that she wanted to create an album that was a safe haven for people.
“It’s a very pan-African album,” she says. “A lot of my friends inspired the project. I wrote this album with friends, for friends. And a lot of my friends who came to my space at Wondaland [her base near Atlanta, akin to Prince’s Paisley Park complex], we would have these parties together. And they came from all over the world: from South Africa, to Ghana, to Nigeria, to Jamaica, the Caribbean, from New York, down south, to Atlanta, LA – all of us together. Partying, sweating, meeting new people and feeling free to fall in love, because we had a safe space.” She nods solemnly. “That’s so important to me, and I just wanted to create music that was a soundtrack to that lifestyle.”
Right now, we are fighting back against the laws and the Bills that are trying to stop the very existence of trans people. These are our family
Monáe has always made socially conscious music that challenges as much as it entertains. Her 2015 protest song Hell You Talmbout (later updated in 2021 as Say Her Name (Hell You Talmbout) listed names of black people who have died at the hands of US police or in racially motivated attacks; other songs, such as Turntables, similarly tackle racial injustice, while Django Jane was a whooping war cry on behalf of women: “Hit the mute button, let the vagina have a monologue.” It has always been important to impart a message and offer the option to resist via her music, she says.
“For me, this album is also a representation of creating that safe space, to where we feel free of police and judgment,” she says. “Where we can just be our black selves, and we’re not thinking about oppression. Because there will never be a time in our lives when something heavy isn’t happening; there’s always something heavy. Right now, we are fighting back against the laws and the Bills that are trying to stop the very existence of trans people. These are our family. They wanna stop talking about the LGBTQI communities in schools; they wanna stop talking about black history in schools. They’re literally trying to erase us by law, and we have to fight back against that.”
[ Janelle Monáe: Age of Pleasure – Like the Kama Sutra set to musicOpens in new window ]
She pauses, shaking her head. “And we are also gonna take a moment to celebrate – because that’s exactly what they don’t want. They don’t want us to have celebrations, they don’t want us to be experiencing joy. They don’t think we deserve that. But I do,” she adds with a steely nod. “We absolutely deserve it. And that’s why The Age of Pleasure is important.”
Having somebody like Grace Jones on this project means the world. That opened up a whole other level of freedom. And Kel-P Vibes does a lot of great production on the Afrobeat side
The Age of Pleasure balances weighty topics with fun and frivolity; it was crucial to Monáe that the record could work in a party setting, too.
“My friends inspired me,” she says. “I wanted to make something that we could go out to, and have fun to and feel free listening to. I definitely collaborated with a lot of incredible people on this project. Having somebody like Grace Jones on this project means the world. That opened up a whole other level of freedom. And Kel-P Vibes does a lot of great production on the Afrobeat side ... I can go on and on and on. But I just think it was the people that are in my life and have inspired me, and have been partying with me.”
Her own real-life experiences informed this record, too. “Lipstick Lover came from a real experience that happened when I walked in the bathroom, and I had just finished making out with someone and they had put lipstick on my neck,” she says with a coy smile. “And I just remember looking in the mirror and being like ‘Hmmm. I love how this feels. That’s a damn song.’”
It’s pertinent that Monáe should mention Grace Jones, considering the parallels between both artists. The visual aesthetic has played a huge part in both their careers; from Monáe’s former habit of wearing her trademark tuxedo on red carpets (although she had dropped this style in recent years, as evidenced by her jaw-dropping recent Met Gala outfit), to her Afrofuturist-themed visuals, the 44-minute “emotion picture” that accompanied the release of Dirty Computer and her very particular concepts over the years.
“Well, I’m an artist through and through: how I dress, I love telling stories through art,” she says. “So from fashion to literature to music to TV and film, all of that. And when I have a vision, I just see it through. What’s stopping me? How I’m living my life on Earth always seeps into my art. So everything is pretty authentic, y’know? When I’m hiding, you’ll hear it in the music. My Cindi Mayweather persona was meant to protect me, protect this version of Janelle Monáe. A lot of people don’t know that, but yeah – Cindi was created out of a necessity, because I didn’t feel safe to be who I am now.” She shrugs, smiling. “But I’m good now.”
In recent years, Monáe has had acting roles in the likes of Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Harriet and most recently in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out: Glass Onion. Her next role will be in TV series De La Resistance, in which she will play American-born French singer, dancer and actress Josephine Baker, who worked with the Resistance in occupied France. “And France was a place that opened up its heart to Josephine when America didn’t, because of the colour of her skin,” she nods. “So she was super-liberated, she owned all of her, she was very free; I love that I get a chance to honour her. And I studied acting – I was always acting as a kid, in high school, in middle school – and singing, as well, in talent showcases. I’m pretty much doing what I was doing when I was at home in Kansas – so this isn’t ‘new’; I’ve always had a love for storytelling and becoming characters.”
I know my intention was to create a safe space, sonically, for people. I hope that people feel free to let their hair down, to be all of them, walk in their authenticity
The clock is ticking on our brief time together. As Monáe’s publicist cuts in to insist the next question should be the last, she pauses to mull it over: considering how The Age of Pleasure has liberated her in so many ways, what does she want other people to take from it?
She smiles, pursing her lips. “Y’know, I’d never want to tell people what they should or should not do. I know my intention was to create a safe space, sonically, for people. I hope that people feel free to let their hair down, to be all of them, walk in their authenticity. Have more human-to-human connections. Have their own pleasure parties and safe spaces with their own loved ones and friends, like I did. And I hope they feel loved.” She sighs softly, smiling again. “I hope they feel the beauty that I put into this album, and they go and make their own beauty, as well, even in the midst of chaos.”
The Age of Pleasure is out now. Janelle Monáe plays Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, on July 6th
