Black Girl Magic

I first heard of Janelle Monáe after shazaming her song "Yoga" in 2016 at a restaurant and then recognised her playing Mary Jackson, NASA's first black female engineer in the film Hidden Figures. I later went on to see her in concert in Manchester in July 2019 after the real of her latest album "Dirty Computer". My only regret, is that I didn't know about her earlier.

Janelle Monáe is a bold talented queer black woman and she owns it. Her music is a medium to educate and inspire, with every song having a deeper meaning or an overarching theme. She brings visibility to sexuality, feminism, black power, class oppression and queer representation in her music, which is often very underrepresented.

Long before Beyoncé and Lana del Ray released their own extended-length visual albums, Janelle Monáe created "emotion pictures" which are expressionist films accompanying her musical albums. Over the past two decades, she crafted a dystopian universe following a cohesive sci-fi storyline based on Afrofuturism. This explores the black culture and imagination to liberation, intersected with technology and finding identity in a world where people succumb to labels. In her words:

"It's a way of bridging the future and the past and essentially helping to reimagine the experience of people of colour."

Her projects follow a time-travelling android called Cindi Mayweather, born to disrupt a modernist world with a rigid social hierarchy. Her discography starts with the 2003 EP Audition followed by 2007 Metropolis: The Chase Suite, inspired by Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece Metropolis with the social dynamics of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Although the sci-fi tropes are based on 20th century white male writers, she has mapped the narratives into her own identity.

In the 2010 ArchAndroid album and then onto 2013 The Electric Lady, Cindi becomes the android messiah, defeating oppression by reclaiming her power. But why androids? In Monáe's universe, the android represents the new 'other' such as African-Americans, the LGBTQ+ community, females and minorities, who are often discriminated against and are treated as less-than. Her experience as a black, queer woman trying to survive (and thrive) in a world that sees little value in her is woven deeply into her music.

Here are a few of my personal favourite works of Janelle Monáe which demonstrate her creativity and self-expression.

Q.U.E.E.N feat. Erykah Badu

Q.U.E.E.N ("Queer, Untouchables, Emigrants, Excommunicated, Negroid") is a song from The Electric Lady focusing on the empowerment of not just women, but other oppressed peoples. The song is an R&B / funk track to jam along to, with a question-answer format used to explain misconceptions and stereotypes of those in oppressed communities.

Q.U.E.E.N is a manifesto of defiance and acceptance. One such question-answer format regards women's bodies:

Is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror?

And am I weird to dance alone late at night?

And is it true we're all insane?

And I just tell 'em, "No we ain't" and get down.

Monáe explains that this is what women have to ask themselves, whether they're in control of their own bodies and if is it weird if they enjoy themselves for their own sake? Sure, twerking is common for making money and bringing attention to a woman's body but the notion is, it's only seen as normal if it's done for the male gaze. Twerk in the mirror girl! You do you!

Now, how many songs do you know that juxtapose religion

"Will your God accept me in my black and white?

Would he approve the way I'm made or should I deprogram, reprogram and get down?"

with alludes to lesbianism

"Am I a freak because I love watchin' Mary?".

One of my favourite subtlety of this track, is the background harmonies are saying 'Queer' instead of what might sound like the title, 'Queen'. Her gay empowerment undertones do not go unseen, nevertheless they are included sutley into a catchy tune to not overpower any of her other messages.

"Even if it makes others uncomfortable, I will love who I am"

"Mixing masterminds like your name Bernie Grundman.

Well I'm gonna keep leading like a young Harriet Tubman

You can take my wings but I'm still goin' fly

And even when you edit me the booty don't lie

Yeah, keep singing and I'mma keep writing songs

I'm tired of Marvin asking me, "What's Going On?

March to the streets 'cuz I'm willing and I'm able

Categorize me, I defy every label"

The tip of the hat to a less well-known, but incredible historical black figure is depicted in Monáe's rap lyrics at the end. Harriet Tubman was a political activist born into slavery and helped ensure the defeat of it in the USA. She went on to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, serving as a nurse and scout, using safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

Django Jane

Django Jane from the 2018 album Dirty Computer, is a rap anthem with hip-hop tones and a steady but heavy-hitting rhythm, exhibiting Monáe's versatility as a musician. One track she makes you dance in the mirror, the next you're spitting rap bars about gender and race. What a queen.

The video depicts Monáe dressed almost like an African king, atop a throne in richly coloured suits surrounded by a female army that mean business. The rap is in response to her threats felt as a black, sexually liberated women:

"Remember when they used to say I looked too man-ish

Black girl magic, y’ll can’t stand it."

Janelle Monáe rocks her signature tuxedo in most of her videos and in public. Wearing suits is an a homage to her working-class upbringing and an honour to her parents grafting hard in their lower-paid jobs as she mentions in her lyrics:

"Momma was a G, she was cleanin' hotels

Poppa was a driver, I was workin' retail

Kept us in the back of the store

We ain't hidden no more...".

Her tuxedos are commonly in black and white to depict a 'uniform'. Her decision to wear this look resonates to me the power of fashion and being proud of the resilience of your family from the struggles they've had to overcome.

The tuxedo also rebels against the gender norms to what it means to 'dress like a woman' or 'dress like a man'. Fashion is about wearing what makes you feel empowered and comfortable in your own skin, whatever your gender.

It's not a Janelle Monáe track without mentions of female and black empowerment. Monáe's raps about "pussy power' with raise-fist symbolism, implying the the Black Power logo associated with black pride and solidarity. My personal favourite lines are where she throws spite at mansplaining with:

And hit the mute button

Let the vagina have a monologue

PYNK

PYNK is the vagina, literally, having a monologue.

Again from the 2018 album Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe takes political fashion to the next level, swapping her tuxedos to vagina trousers. Yes. Why? Because she can.

Never one to stray away from political matters and female sexuality, PYNK is about all things female and queer. The music video is a femme-dominated utopia including heads popping out of a vaginas, showing us literally where we came from.

PYNK lies in the R&B genre providing a staccato tune to her lyrics which educate people to see beyond gender and to accept a more fluid society.

"Pink like the inside of your, baby

Pink behind all of the doors, crazy

Pink like the tongue that goes down, maybe

Pink like the paradise found

Pink when you're blushing inside, baby

Pink is the truth you can't hide, maybe

Pink like the folds of your brain, crazy

Pink as we all go insane"

Monáe mentions the colour pink as the colour found in the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies of humans from a vagina to your brain. Pink is a 'girly' colour but why should it be just associated with just women, when all humans have pink in their bodies?

"Cause boy it's cool if you got blue

We got the pink"

PYNK is about control of your body and feeling sexually liberated as a woman. Female pleasure is an act of self-love often shunned off as girls and women are taught to feel embarrassed about their bodies if they're not 'perfect' (defined by men). Criticisms about the female body come from both men and women alike. Nevertheless the music video includes groups of women dancing in a desert, in a slumber party or sitting by the pool expressing appreciation for their vaginas. This manifests how the strength of female friendship and open sexuality trumps society pitting women against each other.

Speaking of Trump, I have to share my favourite pussy power moment in the video in retaliation to the leaked recording of Trump saying he can just 'grab women by the pussy'

Turntables

Finally, I want to touch upon Janelle Monáe's latest song Turntables used in the movie soundtrack for the Amazon Original All In: The Fight for Democracy about US voter suppression.

Monáe uses music as a political tool for rebellion. Turntables features a rap about today's social climate, especially of Black Lives Matter protests and capturing the revolution. She inspires me to not shy away from speaking out against tough injustices of oppressed people, even if you feel like you won't make a difference and that the hard work is worth fighting for.

The signifiance of the song is about fighting on the front lines against racial inequalities, systematic racism and systematic oppression. It is movitational and uplifting and is a perfect protest anthem which galvanises citizens when they're fatigued. Fighting for injustic is tough work.

Her rap includes lyrics such as:

"Look at where my fists go"

which is accompanied with the raised clenched first in the music video, a symbol associated with Black Lives Matter movement, depicted in many of her videos. I look up to Monáe for being a black voice that will inspire generations, and using her fame to speak and fight for injustices.

Monáe explained the choice of name for the song in an Apple Music video as:

"This song is capturing the revolution. And when you think about a record, when you think about a record spinning, when you think about the revolutions per minute, it's all connected. And that is what this song means"

The Turntables music video doesn't shy away from showing devastating footage of racial opression and police brutality in protests for justice. However, Monáe transforms it into a display of Black resilience and strength again using her music as a political platform. I appreciate how bold she is it to communicate her music with a no-nonsense tone.

"Hands dirty

Mind clean

A different vision

With a new dream

We kickin out the old regime

Liberation, Elevation, Education

I said America

Yous a lie

But the whole word bout to testify

I said the whole word bout to testify

We gon watch the table

Now we gon watch the table"

Music speaks to everyone and has a huge influence on the way we think, the things we do and how we move. It makes us feel empowered, comforted, happy, sad and moved. Monáe has shown me that music is more than just entertainment, a sick beat or for a particular mood. It is an art form that can be a political platform and has the power to strengthen representation and challenge the status quo.

I am neither black nor queer, but Monáe is still very much a role model for me. She is one of the handful of black women that run their own record label, and invests generously into being a voice for the masses and advocates about loving who you are through her music, by truly just being herself.

Janelle Monáe is a trail blazer, and her work listed here is by no means exhaustive. She is a prime example of black women leading the way in the music industry, and I know her legacy will be felt for generations to come.