Janelle Monae, the interview: 'I identify with androids'

Along the way she was championed by the members of OutKast, who included her in their 2006 movie, “Idlewild.” But she helped create her own scene, forging the Wondaland Arts Society with peers from the arts world. “It’s a place for people to be themselves,” she says.

More thoughts from Monae on the eve of a tour with Erykah Badu that brings her to the Chicago Theatre on June 2 and 3:
 
Q: What came first, the songs or the concept?

A: I introduced the concept of “Metropolis” few years ago via my writing partner Chuck Lightning. I’ve always been a lover of science fiction. As a kid I used to watch “The Twilight Zone” with my grandmother all the time. I knew when I recorded an album, I wanted a concept. I’m a writer, I’m a director, and musical theater is in my background. I enjoy creating musicals, and having songs that feel movie-esque. We named this an “emotion-picture.” When I created “Metropolis,” I had this quote in mind: “The mediator between the hand and the mind is always the heart.” I wanted to represent the heart. I chose an android because the android to me represents “the other” in our society. I can connect to the other, because it has so many parallels to my own life – just by being a female, African-American artist in today’s music industry. I have gone to predominately white or black schools, and tried to represent individuality, whereas some of the people around me were not. Whether you’re called weird or different, all those things we do to make people uncomfortable with themselves, I’ve always tried to break out of those boundaries. The android represents the new other to me.

Q: Many of the songs talk about the idea of self-expression and self-empowerment.

A: Some of these songs came to me in my dreams. I was able to record my iPhone. This subject haunted me. I went to Prague, Turkey, that opened things up further. I wanted to remain committed to the jam. We’re not trying to do anything for the sake of being different. I wanted to evoke emotions that people haven’t been in contact with enough.
   
Q: It was subconscious?

A: Absolutely. But it was also rooted in my life. I wear a uniform on stage, and it comes from the fact that my mom was a janitor, my father drove trucks, my stepfather worked at the post office. I want to create music that moves and inspired the people that I grew up with, working class people. That’s who I created this for. I create music to celebrate our differences, our individuality, and unite those people.

Q: Your musical taste is all over the map.

A: I’m a lover of great music, I never have tried to make a specific sound, or be different just to be different. Whether it’s psychedelia, classical, hip hop, it’s all music, and it’s either good or bad. I’m a part of the iPod generation. People don’t have one style of music on their iPods. It goes from Lauryn hill to Sinatra to Bach to Nirvana. I don’t think people listen to one genre. I’m a moody artist, I move around a lot musically. It’s not a conscious decision. It’s just something we grow up with.

Q: It sounded like you had a rough childhood. How did your upbringing influence your decision to be an artist?

A: I didn’t have a particularly rough childhood in Kansas City. There were certainly people I knew who had it worse than me. I had a working class family and I contributed to paying the bills from an early age. I had to be the rock in my family for very long time. My leadership skills have always been there. I always felt my duty was to help and guide, whether through music or my life. I wanted to lead by example, because of what I learned from my surroundings. My father had a drug problem, but he’s clean now, doing wonderfully. But it affected me. I don’t do drugs. I consider myself the drug. It could’ve easily been the other way around, I could’ve easily been a product of my environment and played the victim. But I consider myself a thriver. I refuse to use my race or my background or anything as an excuse not to reach my goals.

Q: You went to New York to study theater, so how did you end up in Atlanta?
       
A: I’ve always been a lover of musical theater. When I grew up, I was Cinderella in the school play and I wrote plays as part of the young playwrights roundtable, this inner-city program. I always wanted to create my own musicals. I went to school in New York and then I left, because I didn’t want to be influenced by those standardized teachings. I didn’t want to end up in something like “The Lion King.” I wanted to create my own thing, and I did.

Q: Why Atlanta?

A: Sometimes I take risks. I just follow my inner compass, and this is one of those situations. Something in my gut told me to go to Atlanta, and it was the best thing that happened to me. I met a bunch of likeminded individuals and started my own label as part of the Wondaland Arts Society, with visual artists, graphic novelists, performance artists, musicians --- we all want to preserve art, and we feel it’s our duty and right to create a different blueprint for aspiring artists. We feel we don’t have to take the same route to get where we want to be. It’s about being individuals.
 
Q: How did you hook up with OutKast?

A: I knew (OutKast cofounder) Big Boi through a mutual friend, and he had seen me perform at an open-mike night at Sean Combs' restaurant (in Atlanta). Then he came to the studio to see us and he liked what he saw and heard. At this time, I had been working at Office Depot, and I had been fired because I responded to an email from a fan while at work, which was against company rules. So I was fired and I wrote a song about it called “Letting Go.” Big Boi put out the song for me on a compilation CD, and then (his OutKast partner) Andre 3000 asked us to be part of “Idlewild.” 

Q: By creating your own label, it suggests you weren’t happy with the way artists were being presented in the mainstream industry.

A: I wanted a new energy to be out there, to focus on new ideas, and the future. As an African American I wanted to show we are not monolithic. There are so many different sides to us that are not being represented in the music industry. And it’s also important for young girls to have different options. You have a choice: You can be yourself, or you can follow the pack. It’s very important to represent the many sides of us that are out there. I want to redefine how a woman can dress, how she can wear her hair. It’s sad when you feel you have to change who you are to get your voice out there. We can have a better, happier society when people are accepted for who they are.

greg@gregkot.com

Janelle Monae with Erykah Badu and NERD: 7:30 p.m. June 2-3 at Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St., $49.50, $59.50, $69.50; ticketmaster.com.