Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Janelle Monáe

Episode Date: May 1, 2022

Janelle Monae has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards over the years without ever chasing the pop charts. Instead, she has created her own genre-defying artistic universe, with mentors and musical collaborators like Prince and Stevie Wonder guiding her along the way. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with the music star turned author to talk about her latest project – writing a collection of science fiction short stories.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. I have for you this week, I think it's fair to say, what is a one-of-a-kind episode of this venerable podcast with music star and now author Janelle Monet. She is a unique voice in music. She is a unique voice in our culture. And my goodness, I have to paint you a picture because In fact, I encourage you to go online and find the Sunday Today version of the interview or just some photographs. Here's the deal. We're on the ninth floor of the Museum of Design in New York City, right on Columbus Circle. There's a restaurant up there. We're all set up. Lights on, cameras rolling, little table for the two of us to have the interview.

Elevator doors open, outwalks, Janelle Monet wearing head to tail. I want to get it right because it's a, designer and she'll mention the name in the interview, but I think it's latex maybe, rubber at least. And I mean head to toe. She has a hood on. She has a full body suit all the way down to her feet. Her sunglasses are futuristic. One side is a circle for one eye. The other side is a rectangle. Hopefully you're Googling as we discuss this because I want you to have the mental image. truly stunning. And really, she walked off the elevator, oh my God.

And she came in character. And the character was one from a new book that she's written. It's sort of a futuristic, dystopian, almost sci-fi book called The Memory Librarian based off this whole universe she's created in her music

and with everything she does looking at the future. I will let her explain it because you don't need me to or want me to do it. Suffice it to say, it's the best and coolest outfit in the history of Sunday today, in the history of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. We talk about that book. We talk about her activism through her life, through her music, and her successful music career. She's been nominated for eight Grammys. That's a story of a rise from Kansas City, the daughter of a custodian and a sanitation worker, to truly become one of the most unique voices in the music industry.

So I will step aside with that image in your head. hopefully you've seen it by now and you can picture it. It is truly breathtaking. It is truly awesome. A great conversation right now with Janelle Monet on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Janelle is great to see you. Oh, it is great to be seen. Can we just start with this look, this outfit? Tell me who we're wearing, what we're wearing, all of it. Well, we are officially in the memory librarian book. This is a, a look inspired by the lead character, Cichette, who is the memory librarian. And I decided to bring Cichette to, are we at dinner, are we at lunch, or are we at breakfast?

Let's call it lunch, sun's out, right? A brunch. A brunch dinner? Yes. A brunch inner. Something like that. Yeah. I decided to bring Cichet, you know, one of the characters from the book with me.

And this is custom Dead Lotus Couture. So I worked with Nansha, who is the designer. She and I went back and forth on this look together. We took an informal poll. We've been doing the show for six years. You officially are the coolest human being I've ever sat across from. So just wanted to give you that honor here and thank you very much. Well, I would love to take that, but I'm an android.

Right. So I'm not 100% human. Right. So I have to give that to someone else. Yes, fair enough. But I appreciate the offer. I'm honored. My human side is honored. Well, thank you for both sides who are here with you today.

I'm so honored to be here with you. Thank you. So I can't wait to dig in and talk to you about this extraordinary book. I was saying to you, okay, Janelle Monet, we want you to come out with a book. Maybe it's a memoir. You have an amazing personal story as well. And you said, I don't think so. I want to write something a little more challenging, something that may be a little more interesting, a little more abstract, but something that certainly speaks to our times right now, even though it's said in the future, So just for people who were thinking about picking this up, is it even possible in a little while to explain what this book is about?

Sure. So the memory librarian, this book, this short story collection, was grown from the same soil as Dirty Computer, my 2018 album and film that I released. And the Memory Librarian deals with this totalitarian society regime, New Dawn. New Dawn is kidnapping dirty computers. people who will not assimilate, people that refuse to, you know, not walk in their full authenticity. They are being kidnapped, New Don's taking their memories, swiping them clean, and giving them new identities. And so each story deals with protagonists, black and brown folks, folks in the LGBTQIA plus communities who just refuse to assimilate. The story, I mean, obviously there are echoes of your own story in here.

I think it's fair to say, given the groups that are represented in this book. And also, you're being, if I may, a dirty computer yourself, which is to say you're not going to be something that the culture wants you to be or the music business wants you to be. So do these stories all come from somewhere within you? Yeah, I'm sprinkled in a lot. But it's a community, you know, and that was super. important community, making sure that not just my own personal story was represented, but there's so many of my friends and my family members, my friends in the trans community that I wanted to highlight in the non-binary community. Like, there's so much of us, there's so much intersection,

and I wanted to get into that nuance. And speaking of community, I worked on each short story with an incredible writer. I worked with Eliad Don Johnson on the the memory librarian, which, you know, it was a thought experiment that I had. I was like, what if there was this memory librarian, this, this black woman who literally kept and stored the memories of everybody in the city? Like, she knew their pasts. Before, you know, before they were wiped clean, she knew who they were. And this memory librarian wants to fall in love. But how do you fall in love when you know everybody's secrets. How do you do that?

And their secrets, their identities lead her back to finding out who she is because she was a dirty computer before she became a memory librarian. So that was really cool. So I worked on that with Eliadon Johnson and Time Box. I worked on with Eve L. Ewing. It speaks about time poverty. for black and brown folks who have been having to spend a significant amount of time just trying to reach the American dream and go find the boots to really pull ourselves up from from with our

bootstraps whatever that whole terminology means but these are for people who are like out and advocating for black lives and doing that good social justice work what if I said, what if there was a room in your apartment? And every time you didn't know this room existed, but when you walked into this room, time stopped. How would you spend your time in that room? Like if you could get back time, the time you lost from fighting, from protesting from, you know, working 16 jobs, like,

how would you spend that time? Would you rest? Would you tell the rest of the community about the room? Like, really thinking about it, you could get time back, reclaiming my time, in the words of Maxine Waters, how would you reclaim your time? And so, Eve, and I had a wonderful time doing that. And then, you know, Sheree, Renee Thomas,

I worked on a short story with Time Box Altered. I worked on one with Danny Lourg called Nevermind and Save Changes with Johanca Delgado. I'm so fascinated by sort of the origins of this story because it's an allegory that speaks as you just, laid out to everything that's happening in our culture right now, but it's such a different way to tell the story than just coming out and saying it to create this place in the future where all these things happen. It's kind of like your music, too. It's always original. It's always

interesting. How was this born? Where does the dirty computer concept come from? Where does all this come from within you? A nightmare. An actual nightmare? A real living night. I had a nightmare. And I woke up and I had my iPhone and I just had to like record everything I could remember. But I had a nightmare that I was at a movie theater, went to go get popcorn, was walking out of my seat. And this usher was like, come with me, come with me. They're kidnapping people. Come through this back interest. And I was like, get away from me.

I want to watch my movie. And I started to sit down in my seat and I was taken. and I was kidnapped, full memories erased, and I woke up a completely different person. And so as I started to think about it and try to figure out what does this mean, what is this, I was in the middle of working on this album. And I just connected my identity to so many people's identities who are being erased. This whole concept is pretty meta. You know, I wrote it, it's supposed to be fictitious, but look what's going on with Greg Abbott, with Governor DeSantis. They are putting in to law that you can't even talk about the LGBTQIA plus community in schools.

There are schools in states that you can't talk about race in. the erasure of identity is happening right now systemically like people are doing that to kids, to teenagers and to families and it's wrong and so a lot of the work that I'm doing with this book

is to, this book would be banned definitely already banned in all of the schools that support that bill and I'm encouraging young people to read it, to find solace in it, to find hope and find strength, and those who are in the position of power to fight back against these folks who don't recognize us as complete human beings, who deserve to feel seen, to feel heard. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Janelle Monet right after the break.

Welcome back now more of my conversation with Janelle Monet. The book is such a compliment to and a part of the activism that you've already been doing for a long time. That's so central, I think, to your life. Is it nice to have the voice in the platform because of your talent, writing, singing songs, that people will listen to you and people are going to go buy this book and that you can get that message out? I hope to people buy the book, you know, like everybody may not necessarily love me, and that's fine. I come to, that's good. You know, one of the things that I wish I would have known early in my career is that everybody won't love you.

And that's okay. I love me, and I love what it is that we're doing with this book and with this story. Since I was, you know, a child, I'm timeless. But I'll say since I was a child, I was writing short stories. I was writing science fiction short stories. I had one where this alien came and was talking to a plant through photosynthesis and ended up taking my whole neighborhood

and my grandmother with them. How old were you when you wrote this? Your kid? Shoot, yeah, I had to be in elementary school. I was reading a lot of R.L. Stein's, goosebumps, and stuff like that. And then I went on to write for the young playwrights, the coterie theater, where we would write these short stories

and if they were good enough, the local actors would perform them. So I've always had a love of literature, of storytelling. And that's what I feel like my thing is. In music, in fashion, in art, it's like telling stories, right? The Bible tells stories. You see how many people are obsessed with all of the stories in the Bible. You know, that's how you keep the name of Jesus alive. And I'm just trying to do the Lord's work.

You have been such an inspiration to so many people, the kind of people you write about in this book, to black and queer people in this country. Was that a difficult decision for you to step out front and say, this is exactly who I am? Take me or leave me? And to put that out there, or were you completely comfortable with that? The thing about who I am is we change this version. I think being a human is performative. I'm performing a version. of who I think Chenel Mone should be.

Every day I wake up and I'm making choices about how I move, what I do based on the feedback that I got about who I should be. That's a whole other story. But I don't represent everybody. You know, I could only speak from my truth where I met at that time, right? And if it resonates, if it connects, I'm always like, yay! But a lot of me talking out loud to the world is really for myself. Like I need to say it.

Because in my head, I've probably said mean things about myself based on what the world tells me I should be. And, you know, my own things that I probably have had to heal through, which I have. But it's so much negative talk that it's like, you kind of overcompensate. You're like, I'm here. I'm right here. I'm present. This is your . You know?

So that's always really good to get that out. Yeah. And we were talking before we started here just about getting to a place and you touched on it a minute ago in your life, in your career, where you can just say it. Be who you are and not worry about how people are going to react to it. That's got to feel great to be where you are. You can't. I think I cared like a good, even if it was 5%. Those are the moments that are the most disappointed.

I'm like, why did you care about that? Why did you allow that to steal your moment? But I mean, I'm like, I'm floating right now. I'm in the most carefree. I don't have anything to prove space that I've ever been in as an artist. And you can fill it in my music, my conversations. And it's so honest to just like, yeah, I'm like, man, why wasn't I this present? I spent so much time in the future and worried and anxiety and all of those things.

But this is it. This is the trip. You know, this is the, the, the, the. The gold, this is where I should have been. And now I'm doing everything I can to, like, stay present. I feel like I'm on my second earth life. Oh. Yeah.

And that started recently? Yeah, because there's life when you haven't healed. Like, you live that life. But, like, after you've healed, that's a whole other life. You know, it's like you have a clear, you have a clear, you have a clear vision. And that's where I am right now. It's got to feel great. I mean, there are so many people who will listen to that and say, okay, it's easy for

Janelle Monet to say that. She's achieved this level of success. How do I get to that place in my daily life where I'm not worried about what people think about? How do I get to that second life that you're talking about? What would you say to fans of yours who say, I want to be like her? I want to get to that place, but I am still worried about what people think of me and what they say on Instagram and all the other stuff. How do you get to that place? I think I wasn't trust in my own voice.

That's what I think was happening. Like, how are you going to let somebody tell you who you are more than you telling yourself who you are? Like, I know myself. I know my truth. Like, and I think that's where it comes from. You start thinking that somebody else has the answer or the formula. Like, people can give you advice. People can say, oh,

But when I get a gift, an idea, that's between me and the creator and that's it. Like, it wasn't a big mass email sent out. Everybody, here's what Janelle needs to do. What do you guys think? Like, they weren't involved on the deal, on the front end. So why am I doing that? And then I think when I think about, you know, so trust your own voice over that. Yeah.

Like, period. You got to get to a point where you trust you more than you trust them. And another thing I thought about, I was like, you know, the world judges us for whatever reason. He judges, judges me for whatever reason. She judges her for whatever reason. I'm always, there's always going to be somebody playing that role of the judgeer. Yep. Right?

Why do I need to pile on and judge myself? That position is already taken. Go do something else. So that's how I kind of look at that, too. That's so well said. Have you always had that level of confidence and self-assured view of your own life going back to Kansas City when you were a kid and performing and all those things? That does take some confidence for a child. Have you always felt this way a little bit?

I did. I was very confident as a child, but then I lost it because then you know too much. You start to get in the middle school and high school. You get feedback on what the culture thinks is cool. And if you're not, you know, you start second-guessing yourself. But I'm back to it. I'm back to my child spirit, you know, that didn't, that just wasn't concerned about what was to the left or to the right. It was always forward.

That's so good. Yeah. We know too much, don't we? We know too much. We all do. So your mother was a custodian. father, sanitation worker. Where did performance come in your life?

Do you read anything into how that was born for you? Well, my dad also was a musician and performer. So I grew up in a house where when I went to my grandmother's house, she was playing the organ, singing in church. My other grandmother was playing the piano, doing piano lessons, singing in church. So I never had a family that told me that I couldn't do this. Like, they always encouraged it, you know, and I'm thankful for. that because those are your, that's your first tribe. It's your first, like, fan, you know,

they tell you, they let you know if it's good or not. I mean, even my little sister would always be like, shut up, be quiet, ugh, and that would just make me want to, you know, do it, do it more. Of course, of course. And eventually, you end up here in New York for a little bit. You're so talented, you get the scholarship to come here. What was that like to go from Kansas city to turn up in New York City? It was a culture shock. Yeah. I went from like all black school, high school, minority school to being like the only

black person in my class here. And then it was like this big city. I commuted 40 blocks every single day. Or I lived on 140th in Amsterdam. So I went to 72nd Street every day. I share a bed and a room with my cousin. Yeah, I was, I was struggling. But it just made me so much stronger.

And it also told me what I didn't want to do. Right. I thought I wanted to do Broadway. And I'll probably end up doing it kind of on my own terms. I wanted to write something. I didn't want to do anything that anybody else had written because I wasn't really inspired by what I was seeing for black performers, the leading roles.

It was kind of like options were slim. And, you know, it's all about typecasting with, you know, this sort of theater. So I moved to Atlanta. And that's where I really started my own Wonderland Art Society Arts Collective, where I met other people that looked like me that really had ideas like I had. And also were teaching me things. And we just were like, let's just do this independently. Let's write. Let's direct.

Let's act. Let's like become the U-print, not the blueprint. And so that's what I've been trying to do ever since. I don't know how I'm doing, but... You're doing pretty well. I mean, you go to Atlanta. Big boy sees you on stage. Yeah.

She goes, ooh, she's good. What I love about that part of the story is you say, they didn't try to make you into this marketing object or to me. They allowed you to be who you are, which you've continued to be. Was there ever pressure along your rise to be someone else? You should maybe dress this way or make songs for the radio and all that. And if so, how did you ignore that talk? Everybody thinks they're smart.

Everybody, and some people have really great ideas. But, I mean, I just trusted me. I knew I knew I was like, no, this is, there's a different way. And I think I had some meetings where I got told no. And I was just like, okay, well, if I'm going to walk in a room, I at least want to be told no because I was being my authentic self. I don't want to be in the room because of somebody else saying, do this, do that, do that. The other flip side of that, though, is I think that it also made me feel like I had to prove something. I had to prove that, oh, I can talk about science fiction of my songs.

I can dress like this. I can just because I'm black, like, I don't have to just sing that type of music. I'm going to be eclectic and da-da-da-da. And that was important because I felt like it was a cultural reset when I came out. A cultural reset. And people needed to see that particular image. I think now when I look back I'm like man

I could have put my sword down I didn't have to fight I didn't have to spend so much in my career just fighting that I'm just going to prove I got to prove this and prove that I can be successful in this way and I have to do you know I can't like I was limiting myself

even as like eclectic and if you listen to my albums and concepts all of that there were still moments where I didn't give myself permission to have fun because I felt like I needed to be serious and just militant in a sense and I'm just I already went through like the anger of feeling like man I miss so many moments where I could have been having fun so now this part of my life is going to be having fun giving myself permission something you just said just I caught my ear you said it was a cultural reset kind of when you came on the scene what do you mean by that well

You see it, and I'm able to talk about it now because I'm kind of doing this sort of retrospective on when I first come out. But I think it was like, oh, you know, it's a glitch in the matrix. Something new on the scene that doesn't look or feel or sound like anything. Yeah, they may be inspired by, but the way that they are using their energy is just, different. And now, you know, everything will be different. And the people who inspired you, it seems to me, have that same energy. Is that fair to say, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Lauren Hill. There's a long list of people who were... I love all of them. Right? They're kind of like you and that they didn't go with the grain. They brought something else. Is that why you were latched on to artists like those? Yeah. I mean, I used to be obsessed with Lauren Hill. I mean...

Totally. But I knew I could be her. Like, it's only one Lauren Hill. So I had to figure out how to be the best Janelle Monet. You know, how could I, what was my, what was the thing that I was going to be bringing new? You know, I always want to come, like, what am I adding to our culture? What am I adding to the industry? What am I adding?

What am I saying? So that was cool. But, I mean, Prince and Stevie are just like, incredible humans. They never let their mystery or who they were, like the giants that they are musically, get in the way of their mentorship. And I'm so thankful that early on in my career, I've been able to have them, you know, in my life. And as people I can talk to. And isn't it crazy?

I've talked to other artists and actors about this. You look up to someone as a kid when you're coming up. But really, Prince or Stevie Wonder live in some other stratosphere in your mind. And then all of a sudden, you're working with them. they're giving you advice on your album. Is that a wild thing to make that leap into their world? Very. It was.

But then you look at them, you say, these are people who, like myself, you know, just had a light, had something they wanted to say and an idea. And, you know, maybe they took some time and maybe home life wasn't perfect. And they just trusted their gut throughout those months. moments and they were anchored and knowing that it's much bigger than you or me. And that's what I always, I feel most alone when I disconnect from everybody and I'm like, I'm over here, but I'm one with everything. You know, I'm one with everything and I think that they serve as a reminder and how music

serves as a reminder that when we come together, when we can be on the same, you know, we can be on the same, like, frequency, that's when you feel close to God. That's when you feel the universe. That's when, yeah, I just feel like I'm a fabric in a larger quilt. Or a fiber in a larger quilt. Something I've heard you say that really moved me, which is why you said you wear a tuxedo often, which has become kind of a uniform for you. And it's tied back to your childhood, right? To your parents wearing uniforms. Working class. Yeah, what does that tuxedo mean to you in that context? Yeah, when I put it on, I always think about my family. You know, my mom used to serve at banquet. She was a janitor. My dad, you know, a trash man.

My grandmother cooked food for the county jail for 25 years. So I come from a working, hard working glass family. And, um, and, you know, I'm a working, you know, and, I think that's why I'm big on community. I have 49 first cousins. All my aunts and uncles work in class. Like they worked their ass off to make sure that their kids, my cousins, all of us could have beautiful summers and picnics, and we could go to amusement parks and all of that.

So for me, I try to honor that in my work, you know, as much as I can. by this book. I wanted to bring a community of people of writers with me. I could have done a memoir, a coffee table book, but this was better. And that's pretty much, it's just instilled in me to, it's like a gift and a curse in a sense because you can work, work, work, and you don't play, play, play. Like, I'm on that. I've worked for a very long time, and I was super serious. Now I'm like, if we're not talking about vacation, I don't want to talk. If we're not talking about planning a vacation or on a vacation, I don't want to talk. Like, we are supposed to be having the best earth experience of our lives right now.

You know, why are we getting caught up in a rat race? Yes, we have to work. We need to survive. We need to do all these things. We also need to make time. Amen to that. Stick around for more of my conversation with Janelle Monet, right after. a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Janelle Monet.

Before I let you go, I have to ask you how the film roles fit into this puzzle. This is your first book. Yeah. The music, obviously. But we look at moonlight and hidden figures and knives out too. Very excited that you're going to be in that. How do you view acting in this, this picture of your career, this quilt? I love getting into different characters. I told you, the human experience is performative. One time it freaked me out when I thought about it. I was like, this is one big play. We have reoccurring characters, some people in and out of our lives, some same archetypes come back. But I love acting. I love exploring the human condition. And my hope is that can turn some of these short stories into TV or film projects. That would be cool. I would love that. And we're in

I'm going to say this feels like a series to me. Does it? Yeah. Yeah. Let's make that happen. Let's make it happen. Thank you for making time on Pub Day, no less. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having. It's a pleasure talking to you. My big thanks again to Janelle for a great conversation and for really bringing it in the wardrobe department. Janelle's new book, The Memory Librarian and other stories of Dirty Computer is in stores now. My big thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations with my guests, every week. Be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to

Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.