Janelle Monáe, Past and Present
Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Lemonada Media
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 September 2020
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Janelle Monáe believes she's “connected to the future”. And I believe her. But right now she (like all of us) is forced to confront the present. This week we sit with the visionary artist to discuss the painful timeliness of her latest film, Antebellum (5:40), and how it aims to humanize black women (8:40). We also dive into her love of sci-fi growing up in the midwest (12:22), the gift of being fired from OfficeDepot (17:57), the Wondaland collective (26:12), and, finally, the importance of art and accountability in our strange, new world (36:59).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm San Francisco so welcome to the show I am pleased to have on Janelle Monet. She is a, well she's kind of everything. |
| 0:47.4 | An actor, a musician, an activist, a CEO. She seems to have an ability to be anything and everything she wants to be. |
| 0:57.0 | Her latest project comes in the form of a movie. |
| 1:00.8 | In the new psychological horror film Antebellum, Monet as the lead plays a renowned author who's |
| 1:08.8 | been thrust into a new unnerving reality, a reality in which she and other African Americans are forced to work as slaves |
| 1:19.2 | on the eve of the Civil War. Here's a bit from the trailer. |
| 1:23.2 | You're from Virginia, right? |
| 1:29.2 | I can tell you're special. We are the future. |
| 1:39.0 | You're not like the others. I'm coming! |
| 2:00.0 | Whoever you were before. Whoever you were before? |
| 2:02.0 | That's over. What are we doing? |
| 2:25.0 | What is the plan? |
| 2:37.7 | It's a horror film set in the past that unfortunately reminds us of the present. You can watch Antebellum at home on demand September 18th. |
| 2:43.3 | But for today, we discuss the timeliness of this story, especially in the aftermath of Jacob Blake. |
| 2:51.9 | Monet, like many of us, has been asking the big and small questions in the pandemic, questions |
| 2:58.8 | around purpose and value. |
| 3:01.5 | She's tried to remain hopeful and active, fighting on behalf and |
| 3:04.0 | fighting on behalf of the Central Workers and the Black Lives Matter movement. |
| 3:10.0 | Her music, whether it's on records you may have heard like Dirty Computer or The Electric Lady, |
| 3:16.7 | how to be transparent and authentic in a world full of deception and dishonesty. |
| 3:23.0 | She says that since she was young, |
| 3:25.0 | she's been connected to the future. |
... |
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