Janelle Monáe

Fresh Air

NPR

Society & Culture, Tv & Film, Arts, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Monáe is known for her Afro-futurist funk, soul and hip hop sound. She's been nominated for 8 Grammys, and last month she released her 4th album, The Age of Pleasure, where she explores lusty romance and both masculine and feminine energies. Recently Monáe came out as non-binary, using she/they pronouns. In addition to her music, she's also forged a successful career in movies, co-starring in films like Knives Out: Glass Onion, Hidden Figures and Moonlight. In 2020 Monáe spoke with Terry Gross about how she grew up wanting to be on Broadway, her life as a Black queer artist, and working with Prince.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. To celebrate the July 4th holiday, we're reaching into our archives for an interview Terry Gross recorded with singer-songwriter and actor Janelle Monet.
0:11.5	Her music is an eclectic and unique blend of Afro-futurist funk, soul, and hip-hop, filled with sci-fi and gender-bending imagery.
0:20.0	In recent years, Monet has been more public about her own gender identity, coming out as non-binary, and choosing the pronouns they them as well as she-her.
0:29.0	She's also established herself as an actor, co-starring in the film Hidden Figures, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2017, and in the film that won Best Picture that year, Moonlight.
0:40.0	Last year, she co-starred in the popular Netflix film The Glass Onion, A Knives Out Mystery.
0:46.0	Last month, Monet released her fourth album, The Age of Pleasure.
0:50.0	Before we hear our interview with Monet, Rock Critic Ken Tucker has a review of her latest album.
0:55.0	From the moment Janelle Monet began her new album by rapping, I'm feeling much lighter, I float.
1:14.0	I was drawn in by this completely disarming collection called The Age of Pleasure.
1:19.0	No matter what mood you're in, it dissolves any resistance you may have about giving into its joy, its seductiveness, its glowing positivity.
1:49.0	Maybe if you pay me in pleasure, I might keep you coming forever.
2:01.0	Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure.
2:09.0	Monet's previous album, The Grandly Ambitious Dirty Computer, came out in 2018, the same year as the first Black Panther movie, and filled with a similar kind of Afro-futurism.
2:21.0	Monet's version crossed the science fiction of Octavia Butler with the pop eclecticism of Stevie Wonder.
2:28.0	In contrast to this, The Age of Pleasure is intentionally smaller-scaled, more intimate, in some ways more low-key and low-fi.
2:38.0	Listen to the use of an acoustic piano on this song called Only Have Eyes for Two.
2:43.0	It's as though Thelonius Monk walked in to plink out a couple of chords to provide the song with its hook.
3:08.0	The Age of Pleasure is intentionally smaller-scaled, more intimate, in some ways more low-key and low-key and low-key.
3:15.0	The Age of Pleasure is intentionally smaller-scaled, more intimate, in some ways more low-key and low-key.
3:22.0	Only Have Eyes for Two.
3:25.0	Only Have Eyes for Two.
3:30.0	Only Have Eyes for Two.
	...

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