The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2019 - Issue 26

T here is no denying that singer Janelle Monáe has a unique persona. From her boyish dress sense to her amazing hairdos, the Kansas City native has something that makes you stop what you are doing and pay attention. Like David Bowie with Ziggy Stardust, Nicki Minaj with Roman Zolanski, and Beyoncé with Sasha Fierce, the singer came out with her own alter ego: Cindi Mayweather, an indentured android who becomes aware of the unfairness she and her fellow robots suffer at the hands of the ruling humans. After making her musical debut in 2003, Janelle is said to have spent years hiding her true self inside the tuxedo-wearing cyborg. Her famous hairdo normally known as a vintage pompadour was a huge fascination, but is, as the singer told The Huffington Post in an exclusive interview, her own signature hairstyle called ‘The Monáe’. Her early sound consisted of Afrofuturism, a ‘movement in literature, music, and art that features futuristic or science fiction themes which incorporate elements of black history and culture’. On her signature tuxedo outfit, she said, “I don’t make music for kings and queens; I make music for regular people. I wear my black and white uniform to pay homage to those who are working every single day like my mother and father… I represent the working class and I try to create songs that are uplighting because this world can drive you insane, which is why I try to create songs like ‘Tightrope’ and ‘Cold War’, to give them inspiration on how to deal with balance and how to realise your strengths.” Perhaps what brought the artist to people’s attention, apart from her monochrome palette of clothing, was her ‘emotion pictures’ that she described as “a narrative film and accompanying musical album”. Like a teaser trailer, it stimulated people’s curiosity of this emerging musician whose name went on to become synonymous with a certain dystopian funk aesthetic that she created with her first EP, Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) , a piece of work influenced by Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis. Using her music to explore issues of politics, race, and sexuality, Janelle has certainly dug deep with her lyrics. The term ‘Afrofuturism’ was described by Steven Thrasher for The Guardian as “non-linear, fluid and feminist”. He went on to say, “It uses the black imagination to consider mysticism, metaphysics, identity, and liberation: and, despite offering black folks a way to see ourselves in a better future, Afrofuturism blends the future, the past, and the present.” Likened to the demise of the workers in the classic film Metropolis, Janelle’s alter ego Cindi Mayweather took on the task of trying to free these poor souls of the futuristic city who have tolled all day and every day with no hope of freedom, through her music and art. It was after Cindi was marked for disassembly for falling in love with a human, that she escaped and discovered her mission was to liberate the androids from their secondary citizenship and unite the two races: androids and humans. bite music M Janel Dirty Computer