I realize that this post is at least two years late, maybe even five. But even though Janelle Monae is no longer ‘new’ to the music scene, nevertheless she does believe, and claims to have participated in, time travel. So I’ll assume the tardiness of this post is already forgiven.
Monae is currently making headlines because of her work with Black Lives Matter, which got me re-listening to her music. What I discovered was that even though every major music reviewer covered her “genre-defying” 2013 album, The Electric Lady, few have attempted an in-depth interpretation of that which has been heralded as “empowering” and “one of a kind” (AV Club). It came as a pleasant surprise, to me, to find that The Electric Lady, impenetrable as it is alone, stems from a world that Monae has been building for years, beginning with her first official EP. She has created a multi-episode sci-fi saga over the course of three records, and even though The Electric Lady gained a lot attention, and even though she has been associated with the likes of David Bowie and Prince, it seems like the discussion she generated was relatively…surface-level.
Although there is no way to convey Monae’s entire artistry in one blog post (what you should do is sit and listen to the albums), as far as I can tell her sci-fi narrative focuses primarily on the fictional character Cindi Mayweather, an android who falls in love with a human named Anthony Greendown and subsequently discovers her destiny to reconcile humans and androids, both of which have been separated by a totalitarian regime controlled by a secret society known as The Great Divide — all in accordance with the prophetic Book of Zoman. We’ll begin at the beginning.
Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) (2007)
Although it’s ‘just’ an EP, this could be my favorite of Monae’s major works. This is our introduction to Cindi Mayweather, the android messiah. In terms of storytelling, it’s the most straightforward of the albums: there’s a traceable chronology from one song to the next. The first track, “March of the Wolfmasters,” serves as a prologue, explaining that Cindi’s unbridled love, in the futuristic realm of Metropolis, merits capital punishment:
“Android Number 57821, otherwise known as Cindi Mayweather, has fallen desperately in love with a human named Anthony Greendown. And you know the rules! She is now scheduled for immediate disassembly. Bounty hunters, you can find her in the Neon Valley Street District…. Happy hunting!”
Cindi’s love crosses The Great Divide, the punishment for which is “disassembly,” android-speak for death. Then she is caught by the bounty hunters and cast into Cybertronic Purgatory; but first, a chase. “Violet Stars, Happy Hunting!” is the following track, in which we hear Cindi’s voice for the first time. On the run, she is the “other,” the outcast who doesn’t belong. The chase transitions seamlessly into “Many Moons,” which explores countless themes — slavery, technology — but most universally, the shackles of the human condition: Monae sings, “You’re free, but in your mind your freedom’s in a bind.” On the one hand, the insidious Great Divide might be using mind control; on the other, however, this line may be suggesting that the root of evil is internal, in our minds. Even if the hypothetical governing faction established freedom as a core value — hypothetically — its inhabitants would still be bound somehow, in our spirits or minds.
The climax of “Many Moons” is a long list of everything wrong with the world, from corruption to illness to insecurity, and it ends explosively in the “emotion picture” / music video, which is worth every second of your time. The video depicts messianic Cindi performing onstage at a droid auction; as she sings about the evils of the world, she has some kind of electrical seizure and passes out. The video, I believe, actually invites us to relate her to the crucified Christ, short-circuited by the sins of the world: as evidence, consider the references to the biblical Book of Revelation as the Master of the Show Droids approaches on a white horse, surrounded by cyborg brides. The Punk Prophets take off their masks, seeing “unveiled.” As the Droid Master closes in, Cindi sings, “When the world just treats you wrong, just come with me and I’ll take you home. No need to pack a bag.” The lights flicker from her eyes, and by technological standards, she is dead.
The next track is called “Cybertronic Purgatory.” Presumably Cindi has been caught and disassembled by The Great Divide, and now finds herself in limbo, the land of the android-dead, separated from her true love, Anthony Greendown. She sings in an echoey, faraway voice: “Sorry I ran away. Me lost, too. Sorry, I’m in a maze….” The original EP ended with the next track, “Sincerely Jane,” which isn’t a resurrection by any means but rather a funky, futuristic lamentation. Hope seems lost, and all that can be asked is for the Lord to have mercy, which Monae does, singing in a scratchy refrain: “L-Lord have mercy, have mercy, have mercy. Lord have mercy. (Are we really living or just walking dead now?) L-Lord have mercy.” That’s a lot of mercy requested, but we’ll have to wait for the next installment to see what happens. The future remains unclear. The EP ends.
The ArchAndroid: Suites II and III (2010)
Monae’s first full-length album opens with the words: “It’s your time: lead them both back to one.” This is Cindi’s call to rise from Cybertronic Purgatory and reconcile humanity with the androids. In a Grammy interview, Janelle explained about Cindi Mayweather:
The ArchAndroid is very special because she’s similar to the ArchAngel in the Bible, or Neo in the Matrix, and I was speaking about, how are we all going to live in a world with androids? How is this all going to work? There has to be a mediator between the two, between the haves and the have-nots, between the oppressed and the oppressor. And Cindi Mayweather is that. She is the mediator. There’s a quote in Metropolis by Fritz Lang, that I was inspired by, that says the mediator between the mind and the hands is the heart. She is the heart.
The ArchAndroid isn’t as explicit in its Christology as the EP—there’s a lot going on here, and it reminds me, in a way, of the poetry of TS Eliot, or Ezra Pound, incorporating different voices, historical references, even foreign languages.
A huge portion of the album is dedicated to the illustration of the unconditional love that Cindi has for Anthony Greendown. Here is also the introduction to Wondaland, a mythic place where outcasts feel safe but also inspired. Monae has created a real-life Wondaland Arts Society in Atlanta where she and a small group of “beautiful weirdos” create music. They explain:
“We have created our own state, our own republic. There is grass here. Grass sprouts from toilet seats, bookshelves, ceilings and floors…. In this state, there are no laws, there is only music.”
In the story, it’s an idyllic place where androids and humans live together in peace. It’s a place explicitly for outcasts, for those who have no inner ring.
But, of all these themes, the most significant part of the album is the unveiling of Cindi as the ArchAndroid, the messiah, the savior of the androids. Monae told Artist Direct:
“The story of the ArchAndroid is one that’s been going around for centuries in Metropolis. Lots of people didn’t believe in the ArchAndroid at all. It’s very similar to the Archangel or if you think about Neo in The Matrix—it’s ‘The One.’ For the android community, the ArchAndroid signifies freedom and is a beacon of hope because they’re locked in spells cast upon them and they’re discriminated against. They’re not treated fairly at all, and they’re just excited about the ArchAndroid coming.”
Even as this album’s storyline spirals off from the chronology of the Christian story, becoming fully its own, the themes nevertheless propel towards it, especially to the idea that salvation will be awarded to the lesser party, to the oppressed.
A personal favorite is “Cold War,” some poignant lyrics of which include:
Bring wings to the weak, and bring grace to the strong.
May all evil stumble as it flies in the world.
All the tribes will come, and the mighty will crumble.
We must brave this night and have faith in love.
Again, we find Monae evoking Revelation; this time, it’s her reference to all the tribes uniting — “every tribe, tongue, and nation” will come stand before the throne of God, according to the apocalyptic text. For Monae, it’s the extremity that’s important, the ultimate-ness of it. For her, the end of all things is love. The ArchAndroid’s primary theme is love, real love, which pours from sacrifice:
Love is not a fantasy, a haiku written in Japanese,
a word too often used but not believed.
Witness the interaction of the flood, the sea, the sky, the dove.
Time erodes the shore but not our love. (Say You’ll Go)
These primordial images of floods and doves, all roped together by love, remind me that the earthy and often abrasive story of the Bible also pivots around love.
The ArchAndroid ends, not with a crucifixion like the EP, but with a goodbye. Anthony Greendown and Cindi part ways, and, even though they were united by love in the land of Mushrooms (see track 11), we are still waiting for redemption.
The Electric Lady: Suites IV and V (2013)
This is the album for which Monae is most famous. It embodies the revolution started by Cindi, now reborn as the Electric Lady; more than anything, however, this album gives us a more in-depth portrait of the ArchAndroid herself. Monae explained to Rolling Stone: “It’s the origin story, the part where the ArchAndroid realizes she has superpowers. It’s about breaking down stereotypes, fighting against oppression, trying to save the world.” This salvific figure, the charismatic Electric Lady, was born of the least of these: Janelle Monae herself, who, though she often has the look of a super-being, is a human like the rest of us. She told Pitchfork:
“The Electric Lady was inspired by paintings. Every night I would perform, I would paint on a canvas while I would sing… this image of a female body, a silhouette, every single night… I came up with the title in therapy, actually,” she blurted out, seemingly by accident.
Therapy, she tells me, has become an important part of her life since the release of her debut album, 2010’s The ArchAndroid. “It was like I had a computer virus in my brain and it needed to be fixed,” she says.
“I didn’t like the idea of therapy at first,” she continues. “In the black community, nobody goes to therapy. You go to your pastor or you go to the Bible. There’s a stigma.” Monáe, who grew up in a devout Christian family, still says grace before meals. “But I think God blesses us with brains to find medicine, to find cures, and I don’t believe in not using that. Therapists are there to listen.” She also talks about grappling with a split from a boyfriend in between albums, offering a rare revelation about her love life (she’s been known to tell interviewers that she dates cyborgs). “I really wanted to grow into this person who could handle everything,” she says, “and I didn’t know that that’s just kind of impossible.”
In other interviews, when talking about the origins of the Electric Lady, Monae always says something along the lines of: While I was painting, the words “electric lady” came to me. Monae’s language isn’t one of creation but one of reception. Pitchfork continued, saying Monae battles perfectionism:
“I think I have OCD,” she says…. “I really don’t like that, and I’m working on the balance of knowing that some things are just beyond your control and you’ve got to be in the moment and role with the punches.” The Electric Lady has her channeling demons, both big and small…. The Electric Lady reflects the growing pains of an artist trying to reconcile a handful of goals.”
She’s trying to create art, convey a liberating message, and also get her artistic self on the charts in order to “redeem” popular music. Taken together, those are some tall orders. But the promise of the ArchAndroid never fails to excite me. Yet even if Monae did release a finale album (no clues suggest she will), I probably wouldn’t completely understand the vast and complicated world she has created. On her tumblr, Monae discusses “the legendary Skull of Night Thrashings which now sits on the master study table of the Wolfmaster Number 1, President, King & Lord, Oddpa Crix. According to the Book of Zoman, this android skull is a historic relic….” Her world is ever-expanding.
COMMENTS
3 responses to “Waiting for the Full Revelation of Janelle Monae”
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This is incredible, CJ. I have The Electric Lady and love it but always steered clear of the narrative, which seemed cool but super convoluted, a la The Kinks’ Preservation or something. Now I know better.
That said, I bet I’m not alone in wanting some more information about “the legendary Skull of Night Thrashings”. Sounds intense!
Well, the Skull of Night Thrashings was actually the first fully functioning cranium for Cindi’s android type, and it has since been embedded with a special sensor that reflects the emotions of the android population in Metropolis; when it glows red (as in the above picture), it indicates “anger, rebellion, revolution, and worse yet, and most dangerous of all, the illegal android frequency known as love.” The skull symbolically connects death and love. Moreover, a skull (perhaps the very same one?) is featured in Monae’s Q.U.E.E.N. video where it plays a critical role in waking up (resurrecting?) the rebels. Love, it seems, is stronger than death.
CJ,
Great post. I very recently stumbled across Janelle’s music through “cold war” and was immediately struck by how one of the stanzas aptly describes the experience of sanctification. Today, I wikipedia’d her “Metropolis” concept and read about the Messianic dimension to her narrative… then I read your piece and thought, “confirmation!” I plan to start from the beginning with her first EP, take notes, and enjoy the gospel according to Janelle!