WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1133 - Janelle Monáe

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

Janelle Monáe is not going to stop creating, but right now she feels the urge to use her creativity in the service of action. Marc talks with Janelle about the social and political unrest in the country today and why no one has an excuse to remain silent. Janelle explains how her fears of emotional abandonment when she was younger laid the groundwork for her music career and her acting, including her most recent performance in Homecoming. They also talk about Prince, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, androids, and Kansas. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. And welcome to it. If you're new here, thanks for coming. I can get you up to speed on stuff. I've been doing this over a decade. There's like 1,100. There's a lot of episodes. You can get a lot of the back catalog at Stitcher Premium. The most recent 50 are always available.

The one I did with President barack obama is evergreen that's from 2015 and uh you know i talked to a lot of different kinds of people all different kinds full range of entertainment types and presidents i've been going through a hard time myself if you're just joining us for the first time, it's hard for me to focus on the world, which is horrible with some glimmers of hope, but not enough for my liking. But I also have some personal issues that are happening as we speak. I don't want to go rehash all of that, but I'll probably jump in. I'll probably jump in, but i don't want to be rude how are you guys you all right before i get lost in my ramblings today on the show uh is janelle monae yes you never thought that would happen did you i did you assume that i would talk to janelle monae

i didn't she's a grammyinated recording artist with best-selling albums, Arc Android, The Electric Lady, and Dirty Computer. She's also in the movies Hidden Figures, Moonlight, and the upcoming thriller Antebellum. Also in the TV show Homecoming this season, which I watched. I've watched many of these things. I've listened to her music. But she'll be here. So that's exciting. What's happening? When was the last time I talked to you? What day is today? Monday? Yeah. Are you okay? I mean, are you hanging in? I know it's getting, I know some people that are kind of coming unhinged. I'm sure that many of you know people that are coming unhinged. It's been a long time. A lot of people without work for a long time. A lot of insecurity, instability.

of people without work for a long time a lot of uh insecurity instability um nowhere to really look to get uh to get uh that sort of reassurance that things are going to be okay with the fucking world with the country with civilization is civilization going to make it are we going to just digress into some barbaric shit show? I don't fucking know. All I know is that I don't know if even if you want to leave this country, you're going to be able to because now we're the fucking dummies. Now, somehow or another, inside three and a half years or so, this president has brought this country so low that other countries think we're fucking dangerous dummies. I'm sure they always thought we were dangerous, but now we're probably not even going to be able to travel because the biggest country with supposedly the most resources

and the greatest scientists and whatnot, the great America, is now a viral shit show that people aren't going to want Americans in their countries because we have no national leadership or protocol on the front of the biggest pandemic probably ever, right? Look, I don't want to bum you out, but wear your fucking mask.

Listen to scientists. Don't listen to meatheads. Don't listen to personal trainers. Don't listen to your neighbor. I know everybody feels inconvenienced. It's amazing that American fortitude, Americans' ability to sacrifice. Three months in and people are just like, fuck it.

Now, either you don't care about yourself or you don't care about other people or you just think that it's only hitting old people and you don't care about old people. You think it's only killing black people. You don't care about black people or you think it's not going to hit you because, you know, you eat clean. Right. How is it going to get you? You eat clean. Right. You're taking your supplements. You eat clean. It's not going to get you you eat clean right you're taking your supplements you eat clean it's not going to get you you don't fucking know what's going on with your genetics or why anybody yeah there are some things that seem to make it more dangerous to some people

than others but uh you know mr clean guy mr uh you know fuck the world save yourself guy mr uh herd immunity dude mr uh just fucking uh fuck it man fuck come get me man come get me corona you put on your fucking mask. I mean, let's not mistake who the real weak people are. The people that are so put off and so sort of, uh, uncomfortable with, uh,

being told what to do when it serves the interest of the community and themselves. They just don't like being told what to do because they're children. So now instead of just crying about it and doing it anyways, the community and themselves, they just don't like being told what to do because they're children. So now, instead of just crying about it and doing it anyways, the bully children will now bully the people that are taking care of themselves in the community. And that goes right up to the top, man. It goes right up to the top. right up to the top so look um i am trying to deal with a lot of stuff you know i i i feel like some anger is coming back i'm not sure where it's going but uh i talked to you about monkey and i think i've figured out what i'm doing with monkey i'm gonna probably i'm probably see i can't even commit to it but you know he's he's distressed i believe he's pretty close to full renal failure drinking a lot of water

still eating but sort of half hiding doesn't seem comfortable not gaining weight and you know how long do we have to wait for this i mean his sister when his sister went down it was like you know, how long do we have to wait for this? I mean, his sister, when his sister went down, it was like, you know, pretty clear. She was howling and losing her mind. Monkey seems very spaced out, sometimes whimpering. Still out and about, but not really taking the affection much. And I think I'm going to take him in tomorrow. I think I've made my peace with that. I think I'm going have somebody come to the house to put the cat down um i guess in my mind i guess i want to be in a little denial i want to put him

in the box take him to the vet that i know have the vet tell me it's time i guess that's what i'm looking for because i did that with LaFonda too. I don't know. I could have a stranger vet, a strange vet come over and we could do it at the house and he could be comfortable in this house and then I have to give him to them and they take him away. And what then? What happened?

I don't know. I think I want to go to the vet and be told that it's time. And then hopefully, like I thought I was going to have to do it over the weekend but i think he's gonna make it till tomorrow i think my vet will let me be there uh to hold him when they do it now the reason why i have some sort of weird right in this moment i don't fucking know if it's gonna last but uh right in this moment i I have some sort of acceptance of it because I realized that this grieving process that's happening with my girlfriend, Lynn, who died on the 16th of May. And I didn't know she was dying.

I knew she was sick, but I didn't know she was that sick. And that kind of haunts me. And I think that this process with monkey, you know, sitting there with this cat and realizing how long I've been with him and knowing that, you know, compartmentalizing, trying to realize it's's separate from what happened. This doesn't mean the tragedies are stacking up on you, yet they are. This isn't a tragedy when a 16-year-old cat, you know, starts to have failing kidneys. It's not like, oh my God, that's crazy. No, it's what happens. I don't know. I guess I just don't think about that shit.

I don't think about a lot of things when I get into it. You know, when I got these cats, I didn't think like, this is going to suck on the back end here. But it does. But I sat with them and I's transference or it's just what it is. But I've had this whole process. I've been thinking Monkey's going to die for months. Maybe even a year. At least since his sister died. So I've kind of gotten myself around, you know, wrapped my brain around it. I've begun the grieving process. I have a certain amount of acceptance. I know it's not unusual.

It's still fucking sad but you know i spent as much time as fucking humanly possible because i got his time right now even when lynn was alive i would get up in the morning be like is monkey okay is monkey okay well now monkey's not okay but i think i'm finally ready i think he's ready and i think we'll enter this together and you know do it with a certain amount of acceptance but i guess what i'm saying is that i've been able to have the experience of letting go with the um the animal and his sickness and his age and it's appropriate. And I didn't get that with Lynn, but I do feel, I feel happy to have been able to, you know,

be there for the fucking cat. And, you know, aside from that, the, the other stuff just, you know, I get up,

man, I don't know where you're at with how you feel about your life. You know, obviously I'm looking at mine through this grief portal, this window. But I've got enough. I get up, man. You know, it's like I get up, you know, sometimes I'll run through some suicidal ideations just to make myself comfortable. Then I'll run through some suicidal ideations just to make myself comfortable. Then I'll get up. Sometimes I'll fucking pray a little bit just because I want to humble myself and feel connected to something.

That's the biggest problem, really, is that when my heart kind of wants to reach out to something. And when you don't have a God, there's no place for it to land. You're not going to look outside. I can sit on my porch and feel a certain amount of peace but uh you know there's not a lot of hope anywhere and i don't know where i find faith but you know i find it in a present i'm scared about a lot of things i realize life is fragile. I realize that anything can happen. That's for fucking sure. But I get up. And I fucking make my bed. I exercise.

I shower. I comb my hair. I put on pants. And I do a day. That's what I do. And now I'm alone doing it. So there's a nag. There's a void.

There's a kind of like a humming pit that I try to step around that I try not to fall into. I'm looking for some way to traverse it, but I think you just have to, I think I just have to realize, like, there's the humming pit. Do not fall into the humming pit. So I don't, I eat, I cook things, have some melon,

have some melon, will you? So, okay. So this is exciting for me because like sometimes when I do this show, you know, I get opportunities to talk to people that I wouldn't think that I would talk to. And I knew who Janelle Monae was, and I've been impressed with the very little I know of her, which is specifically the movie work. And I recently watched Homecoming because I interviewed Chris Cooper, and she's on that too, and she's great. But then I saw her do the opening number at the Oscars, and I was blown away.

I'm like, what the fuck is this amount of talent coming through one person? But I didn't know a lot about her, so then I got an opportunity to talk to her. Then I got to dig in. So sometimes when I have a guest, I'm like, all right, let me try to wrap my brain around their work. So I'm listening to the records, the music,

trying to get a little sense of where she comes from. And it's very exciting she's a an incredibly talented person a gifted actor musician singer uh composer arranger dancer i mean fuck man it was just i was nervous i was nervous you can see her in the new season of homecoming which is on amazon prime video her next Antebellum, is coming out August 21st. And this is me talking to Janelle Monae. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode

where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Certainly now is the time to talk. Yeah, it's not a time to be silent. Have you been going out into the world?

Have you been doing any street activism or mostly just talking from wherever you can, where you are? Both, a combination of both. What's it like out there on the streets? I've not been able to go out there. Well, in addition to, you know, dealing with police brutality, dealing with the murdering of my people at the hands of police, we've also been dealing with COVID-19. Right. blacks, black and brown people. And we have been feeding those who need food during this time. We're in the middle of a financial crisis. But being here in LA and watching the National Guard riding down the street and the day they came with these big tanks, like we were in Afghanistan or, you know, we were in some war zone. It just felt like an alternate universe. It was very scary. It was intimidating. And it just

further proved to me that it's super important that we defund the police and put that money and that energy into our healthcare systems, into our education systems, into bettering our communities. Do you find, and I'm obviously a different person, but do you find hope? Do you have hope in general? I have action. Action is my love language. I think that it's going to take some real work and conversation had in the white community. I think that until I see the level of conversations around chattel slavery, around mass incarceration, around systemic racism, and the systems that have

negatively affected my people, done by the ancestors of white people and how they're going to dismantle that, then I won't be hopeful. Until I see money put back into our communities around how we can rebuild our communities. When we tried to do it in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the police, the KKK, everyone burned it down until I money put into our communities. I don't have hope. All we have is action. Action. That's my love language. If you want me to be hopeful,

I need to see that level of action and participation. Yes, I need to see that level of action and participation. You were creating a universe, a metaphor to sort of represent disenfranchisement, to represent race. But is that time over now? Do you find that you have time to be creative? Is there a way for you to be creative outside of just specific activist action? I'm focused on being a better citizen. And I think art can meet citizenship, is a part of humanity, can uplift, can inspire, can encourage comfort during these times. But I think my energy is creative ways of building with my community and how I can use the privilege that I have as an artist, as someone who has conversations with corporations and conversations with those who are more privileged than even myself, how can I advocate for them in those spaces? How can I use that leverage, use my proximity to finances to feed my people?

How can we get creative in ways of organizing? That's where I'm using my weight these days. Sure. I have been DJing on a personal level. I've been like trying to DJ. I've been to stay sane. But I wish that my work wasn't as relevant as it is. I mean, I think work that I've done almost a decade ago from my albums. These are songs that I'm still performing. These are songs that still ring true to our times. And, and, and I wish that wasn't the case. I wish that we were not, you know, in a,

in a space where we have to scream black lives matter, that we have to be excited about, you know, on a federal level, they're not going to discriminate against in workspaces, the LGBTQIA plus communities like you, this just happened today. I know that shouldn't be a victory. It should just be what it is. Yeah. It should just be. Why are we having those conversations? And so that that that has taken up a lot of my mental real estate right now and trying to creatively figure out ways to get this administration in this current president out of office.

Yeah, please. Yeah, this this has to change all of what's going on in the police force, what's going on on the streets, the killing of black people, it's all connected, you know, to our position of power right now. still being relevant. I mean, that was, so that was always the vision. I mean, you knew what was going on then and, and you're sad that we haven't moved past that, but, but doesn't it make you at least satisfied on some level that those songs still, uh, are relevant and that they can still mean something to people? Sure. If they can comfort, if they can be a reminder of how much work we need to do and how how far we have not come yeah then yes then so be it and when you were like when you were starting out when you were starting to put together your vision i mean who were the artists that most guided the way stevie wonder yeah for sure uh-huh prince for. And you got to work with him, right? A lot. Yeah. Yeah. I've worked with both of them in different ways. Oh, yeah. What'd you do with

Stevie? I have performed on stage with him a few times and he was on my last album. He has a interlude called Stevie's Dream on Dirty Computer. And with Prince, Prince was on my second album, The Electric Lady. And, you know, both of them are mentors and just family. When you think about mentors like that, I mean, what was it like? You grew up in Kansas City? Kansas City, Kansas. And I can't even, I don't like, I don't even know what Kansas is like.

It's like a lot of things. I mean, do you ever go back? Do you have people there still? I do. My grandmother had 12 kids and she migrated from Aberdeen, Mississippi to Kansas City, Kansas. from Aberdeen, Mississippi to Kansas City, Kansas. And my mom was the baby of those kids. And I have over 50. No, I have not over. I have exactly 50 five zero first cousins. Oh, my God. Very large family.

Yeah. You know, we still talk and we're close. And I go back like maybe once or twice a year to visit. And I go back like maybe once or twice a year to visit. But yeah, it's not like the Wizard of Oz. No, I know. But yeah, there's a lot of a lot, a lot, a lot of things that are that are affecting black people in that community. black people in that community. And I hope to continue to work with organizers there and foundations and organizations to help, to help better, to help better Kansas, you know, to sure.

When you were like, so how many kids in your family? How many siblings do I have? Yeah. I have two. Yeah. Sisters. Younger, older. I'm the oldest.

Do they work with you? No, they have completely different lives. Oh, that's probably nice. Very community, yeah, but community oriented. You know, I come from, my parents were essential workers and we all come from that. So they're working on the community and advocating for our community in different ways.

Yeah, and how did you get started in finding your sort of talents? I mean, when you were a kid, I mean, how did it start for you that you knew you wanted to sing or present yourself that way? You know, kids know they may not be able to articulate it because our vocabulary is constantly developing. because our vocabulary is constantly developing. But kids know who they are, who they're attracted to,

what they want to do very early on. And I think what keeps that dream or that purpose alive is the people around you. They can even discourage you or they can inspire you. They can be the wind under your wings. Yeah. And I fortunately was born into a family that really was the wind underneath my wings. They made me feel like I could do anything when it came to music, when it came to acting. They were at every talent showcase.

They were in the living rooms, you know, egging me on when I had when I wanted to sing a song or had a song in my heart. Like when I was busting out singing songs in church and escorted to the to the children's church. Yeah, I didn't get whooped. They laughed with me about it, you know. Yeah. So I think that a lot of who I am, I owe to my family. about it, you know? So I think that a lot of who I am, I owe to my family. There just seems to be something like you mix a lot of different styles and it's kind of amazing the theatrics of it, but psychedelic, funk, soul, and then there's sort of an almost Broadway feeling to things. There's the, you know, the time travel element, alter egos. It's just like, like, I guess I'm trying to find out when you were a kid

i mean what was the first portal to this world that you were going to invent for yourself was it did you like musicals i mean what made you sort of find a doorway into this alternate universe i did i love musicals i mean i love because i am from Kansas. I did watch The Wizard of Oz. Right. Julie Garland was such a cinema hero to me because she sang and she acted. I also used to read a lot of books. I used to read the Goosebumps series and photosynthesis inspired a lot. Photosynthesis? Yes. The concept of plants. Yeah, that feed on the sun. Yes, that feed on the sun.

And I remember writing early on a short story around plants and aliens working together to snatch humans. Like the plants would be spying in the living rooms or they were in the living rooms or kitchens or bedrooms they would spy on human life and they would be in connection with with the aliens and then they took everybody except for me for some odd reason because i should have been the first to want to go because i love artificial intelligence and i love the concept of the unknown and aliens and all of that and And so I think it was just my love of the unknown, watching Alfred Hitchcock with my grandmother when she used to babysit me,

we used to watch the Twilight Zone a lot. I was always in love with science fiction and I dreamt of a world, of my world, consisting of being able to explore those themes in science fiction and be able to sing and write original music and that was just something that I loved doing you know at an early age right so it was just a uh like a fun thing yeah it kind of free fun until the business that's right yeah everything is fun everything is so beautiful and free until, you know, you start getting non-creatives involved.

Well, like it seems to me that like science fiction would provide like because I'm not a science fiction guy, but I'm definitely a music guy. sort of, it's a very kind of elaborate escape that there's all these different avenues that you can take to sort of build these, to be part of these other worlds with possibilities. And a lot of them are pretty hopeful, really. Yeah, of course. I mean, I think what I'm attracted to is possibility and what can be.

You know, Afrofuturism is, is, is, is, you know, goes hand in hand with sci-fi, but it's seen through the lens, through the black lens. And. Would that be like Afrofuturism? Would that be like Sun Ra, George Clinton, Funkadelic? Yeah. And all of them, all of that music is like, you go outside of what people see you as yeah you know create the world that you want people to see you in you create the characters yeah that you want people to

associate you with you create the world um that that that you thrive in and and that's and that's really what my motivation has been and there's a lot of good like the fucking doubt there's a lot of good comedy in some of that too it is I mean I think humor is is a a good way to deal with you know pain and trauma and and most times that's what we that's what we use as a coping mechanism yeah for sure now can you tell me like, you know, when you started to conceive of the first couple records, like what was the, the, the sort of the basis of the, the kind of metropolis concept? Fritz Lang's metropolis. Sure. Yeah. Uh, uh, that, that particular project. And it was the haves, cause there's a constant battle between the haves and the have nots.

You know, work the working class and the rich privileged. And there was a quote in there that said the the mediator between the hands and the mind is the heart. And I said, that's what I want to represent. The heart. I want to represent the heart. I want my music to represent the heart. I want to all my music heart. I want to represent the heart. I want my music to represent the heart. I want my music to represent that bridge that brings people together. I want what I represent to be a magnet for those who are seeking self-acceptance, for those who are seeking community, for those who are choosing their freedom over their fears. And choosing like their own, the freedom of pursuing their own identity, whatever that may be. Sure. Absolutely. If it's rooted in love, if it's rooted in evolution and teaching of what it means to exist,

if it's rooted in those things, then I'm always going to be an advocate for it. So that whole concept, because it's hard for me to put it all together, but the Metropolis concept sort of moves through, what, two or three records, two or three albums that you did? Yeah, I started off wanting to do suites, which are kind of like EPs,

like maybe five or six songs. songs and i did i released that as a five or six song and then i did uh the ark android which was a double suite um suites two and three and um i forget which suite i've on now but we're gonna continue it it just depends on where where my spirit is um we have other you know, exciting things with those projects because people are now looking at them as like, oh, wow, this could be a film or this could be, you know, a graphic novel. And so we're exploring those avenues now. So you have other people that are creative minds that are sort of like, why not build this out? Let's make a character. Let's, yeah, have a movie.

That was always, always the intention. I mean, if you come to my shows out? Let's make a character. Yeah, have a movie. Well, that was always the intention. I mean, if you come to my shows, that performance. You can tell, yeah. It's not about just releasing a compilation of music or just songs. No, these are worlds. This is world building. And a lot of our heroes from David Bowie, who was Ziggygy stardust

and the spiders from mars which mars was just like one of my favorite albums um from him and he was also able to act and he was you know he was just an idea you know that was always constantly trying to realize itself and to speak and that that that's that's, that's what, that's what has encouraged me. You know, people have come before me and they've done concept albums and they've, they've created worlds. And, um, you know, when you go see them live and you listen to it, you're just like, Oh, this is bigger than just an album. You know, this is, this is a world and that, and, and like them, uh, I want to, I want to continue to create that. It's interesting, though, because I haven't seen you live in concert, and I've watched some of the videos. But even though you choose these performances and these worlds and these concepts, you're a type of performer that there's something raw that always seems to come through.

I always seem to feel like there's a real human in there and a real humanity to it. Like even when, like just watching the way you took over the Oscars that night, there was such a presence to it all that the sort of rawness of it, whatever you were doing in that moment, you know, made the entire undertaking look ridiculous to me. Like your presence made the Oscars look small. Oh my goodness. Don't say that. Don't say that because you'll have some people upset with you about that one. But you know what I'm saying? That somehow or another, even though you create these, like the alter egos and whatnot, there's something about what you're talking about that

sort of love or that authenticity that you managed to come through and i don't i don't know that i always saw that with bowie you know what i mean i thought when bowie got lost in a thing he was lost in a thing to the point where you know at the end of it all you don't really get a sense that you knew who that guy was at all and that that's part of his beautiful mystique. But I feel like, you know, you seem to shine through. You don't seem to be hiding, really. Are you? Thank you. I mean, I think we all are.

You know, I think that we go through trauma. You know, we go through unpacking that trauma as kids. Like what? Like what was your particular thing that you had to unpack? Well, my dad was in and out of prison, for instance, and he's not in prison anymore. He was also a victim of the system. I mean, he had a drug addiction problem, but instead of getting him rehab, they put him in jail. Right. And that's just something that we have to talk about. We have to talk about mass incarceration. We have to talk about mental health. Sure. And my and my dad wrote a book and he is, you know, sober now.

He's the best friends. But growing up, he was in and out of my life. And so there would be moments where I would think he was coming to pick me up and he just wouldn't show up. It wasn't because he didn't love me, but back then that's what I thought. Right. Of course. I didn't realize that his addiction was, was, his sickness was making him absent from my life. And so that spilled over into different moments of my life. Like I remember I used to put on parties.

We have a throw parties with my friends in high school and we would just make money doing that. And it was so bad that I would, my abandonment issues were so bad that I thought that nobody was going to come to the party. So I would hide in the bathroom. I wouldn't come out until they were like, okay, more people here because I just, the feeling of people abandoning me was just so hurtful. You never wanted that pain. And I think it has also spilled over. And I didn't realize this until really like a couple, few years ago that it was spilling over into me as an artist. Like, let's just say, you know, if there were certain things that I want to talk about in my music, I won't name them now.

But if I wanted to talk about them, I'd be like, man, if I say this, what if people don't love me anymore? Yeah. Yeah. What if they leave? What if they go away? And up until, you know, me really being extra vocal about being queer, I would always talk about it in my music. about being queer. I would always talk about it in my music, but I never wanted to talk about it in interviews because I had to have certain conversations with people that I knew love me, but also were homophobic. Like friends and family? Friends and family. I knew they loved me, but to look at me in that way, I was like, man, they might not love me the same. And so I had to really have these deep conversations before I put out Dirty Computer, before I really started to to to be more vocal about my sexuality, because I just I had I had this fear of abandonment. So. I know that I wasn't alone in that, and that's what pushed me to go even harder in who I was, because I was

like, there are a lot of other, you know, Baptist raised people in small towns and communities who are fearful. And there are also people who can't talk about who they are because they could be ostracized or financially cut off or killed, you know? Yeah. So, you know, we're still dealing with these things. And I know firsthand what it feels like to be misunderstood or to have to have that fear of, if I wake up tomorrow after saying this, you know, is everything gone? Did you were you able to. So when you started to have this struggle within yourself, were you able to to sort of facilitate those conversations with your family and your friends before you sort of became more public about it?

Yeah, absolutely. And how did they go generally? Yeah, absolutely. And how did they go generally? I mean, my mom and like people really close to me, you know, knew and they were fine. But you still have you still I still had to have conversations with them because when you when you come in because it's coming in to me, I am I'm not coming out. I don't believe in the concept of coming out. You know, I believe in, you know, coming in. the concept of coming out you know i believe in you know coming in which means which means being included as opposed to what how do you differentiate coming out and coming in well coming in for for for black and brown people it's like you know we're inviting you in yeah i'm inviting you into my space yeah i'm not trying to come into your world and fit in right got it and

i felt like and i still feel like you constantly have to teach people you know about the means to for, in, in my family that, you know, they, they disapprove of, of me loving myself and embracing everything about myself. And, and I just tell them, you know, if you don't, you don't, this always gets, if you don't, if you don't want to, you know, love me for being queer or accept me for being queer, then don't take my my gay queer money. Don't ask me for no money. And then they're like, oh, OK, well, now we accept, we get it. Yeah, we like queer money. Right.

Because you know, listen, when people think that you are, just because you're close to somebody who has a lot of money, you now have a lot of money. You know, they always think hard. They feel like artists know that there's going to be that moment where people start thinking that they are just super, super, super, super rich. Sure, of course, because they're they're related to you. So like when you do you think like then?

Well, that's sort of interesting that that fear of abandonment that that runs so deep in an emotional negligence, you know, emotional negligence with parents, you know, that do you think that some of the the drive of your creativity was to, in sort of an attempt at sort of self-parenting, you created these other worlds and these other places where you could be safe? Yes. Yes, absolutely. A lot of my art was born out of protection. And so like the escapism of science fiction and musicals and anything that looked fantastic was probably such a relief for your heart, you know, to be involved in that. And before you understood the feelings maybe about your queerness or whatever else was going on, you could embrace your otherness because you

had this special world because science fiction is its own special thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right about that. Yeah. I think you're right. And in my world, androids represented black people. Androids represented members of the LGBTQIA plus communities, the untouchables represented anybody who went against the status quo and were, you know, were in marginalized groups and their voices were silenced. So that's what I use the Android as a, as a parallel. Yeah. Well, it makes sense. But also like, it's interesting that you can have these,

these suites and these concepts that you embrace and these different textures musically, but you can also, you know, kick out a pretty solid hit when you want to. Yeah. You know, I always look at when people say hits and charts and things like that. For me, it's always like a hit is when it hits home first. Right.

Meaning when it's honest to who I am and where I am at that time, and also people can relate to it a large amount of people are relating to it then that's beautiful yeah it's it and you know and nobody sounds like you no one's doing that the type of musical integration that you're doing like because when i was listening to some of it the other day it was kind of interesting to me because i couldn't really fit it into uh like i couldn't tell you what type of music it was kind of interesting to me because I couldn't really fit it into, uh, like I couldn't tell you what type of music it was necessarily. It was just your shit,

you know? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I mean, obviously, you know,

there's nothing new under the sun. Yeah. How we, how you combine it. Yes. How you combine it, the elements that you use, you know,

the way you say something, um, makes, makes it something makes it all yours. So when did the, like, do you, like, because I was thinking about David Bowie and some of the stuff that you do. Did you come to acting pretty naturally? I mean, where did that come from? acting pretty naturally i mean where did that come from i think being embodying certain characters in me made me feel comfortable you know which ones which characters i have lots of them really just to get through life yes i think we all have them i think we all are depending on the day we don't all name them, but we have them.

Exactly. And we have them. And you know when they're coming out, certain people trigger those characters. Right. And we just think we have them. But growing up, you know, being in musicals, being an international thespian where I would go in monologue to monologue competitions. You did? Drive two hours away.

How old were you when you were doing that? This was all through high school, through high school. So you were doing theater in high school? Oh, yes, high school. And then prior to that, I was in talent showcases. Then I did a cappella choir. And then I would do after-school Shakespearean programs. And I was a writer also

for the Young Playwrights Roundtable at the Coterie Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. Was that a small theater, community theater kind of thing? Yeah, so they would let like 12 students write these short stories. Oh, wow. And if your short stories were good enough, then the local actors would perform them. Wow. And so I grew up singing and acting pretty much all my life. Do you remember what your first stories were?

You know what? I don't. I think because I got kicked out of the program because my mom and I were sharing a car with my mom. And my mother was I were sharing, I was sharing a car with my mom and my mother, you know, was an essential worker and she would sometimes have to stay late to clean. And so if she was late picking me up from school, that meant I was late getting to the afterschool program. And so I was late too many times and they kicked me out. So I think I just pushed that part of my life outside of my spirit and my body. It was traumatizing because I loved that program.

And my heart was broken. Oh, that's too bad. And so you focused more on the music after that? No. I went on to perform in art school in New York. I went to the American Musical and Dramatics Academy fresh out of high school. And I went there and I studied musical theater. I studied acting. I studied sight singing, all of the things to, because I wanted to

do musical theater. But then I said, I think it's cooler and it's better to do it on my own terms so that I'm not sounding like everybody. You know, I love these techniques and learning how to use my voice. So I took from it what I needed to apply on my albums and in my life, but I did not want to sound like everybody. And I didn't like the roles that were offered on Broadway. Well, it was good that you knew that early on and that you were at least... So how did then, once you knew that, once you knew you wanted to go into being a recording artist, how does that start? I moved to Atlanta. Atlanta.

Yep. I wanted to be around other black creatives. Yeah. To be around other black musicians, actors, like, and then my best friend was going to school at Clark Atlanta University. And I ended up moving to that college campus where Morehouse and Spelman and Clark exist. And I started meeting other artists, other other black creatives who were searching, who, you know, were coming from different walks of life and and had something they wanted to say. You know, and I started being a part of an organization, not organization, an arts collective. We formed this arts collective called Wonderland.

And in Wonderland, you know, you have actors, you have musicians, you have screenwriters, you have poets, you have you have so many different types of visual artists. And we just were like, we want to create a different blueprint. We want to start an arts collective that, you know, does these art stunts through music, through visual art. And, yeah, we want people to look to us in the same way that we look to Paisley Park. We were excited about this new era, you know, of artists coming together. And you did it. We are doing it still, you know. Some of the original people from Atlanta are still with you?

Yes, absolutely. And like, so when you started it, you had people from all different realms, from music, from visual arts, from like what else? Dance, everything? Dance, everything. Yeah. Public speakers. Public speakers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actors. Everything. Everything you can think of. And then how did that evolve? Because that's your label now, isn't it?

bingo and then that how did that evolve because that's that's your label now isn't it yeah so the art society uh is like the tree like the big macro idea and then we have uh wonderland records we also have wonderland pictures so i have a production company um where we are producing films and television shows. Do you like acting? Do I like it? Yeah. I love acting. Yeah? I love taking on characters that are different from myself

and also that are in me that I'm ready to get out. Right, right, right. I love being a part of films like Moonlight and Hidden Figures that honor people in our communities. Yeah. Voices we hadn't seen amplified on screen before. Yeah. History that teaches

the rest of America about, you know, who we are as a people. Yeah. Reminding folks that we're not monolithic, that we, from NASA to the ghettos, to arts collectives, to the strip clubs, we are multifaceted. We are brilliant. And there's so much nuance in us. And that's what I like doing. I like bringing those characters to screen. That's great. And what's Antebellum about?

Antebellum is a psychological thriller. I filmed that in New Orleans, and I play an author, Veronica Henley. And I don't want to spoil things, but I think that this film is right on time in terms of where we are good. In terms of where we are politically, in terms of where we are when we're dealing with race. But it's a psychological mind bender.

Oh, yeah. And I watched your season of Homecoming. I watched all of it. Thank you. That's a very frightening possibility, that particular problem of all of a sudden not knowing who you are, what you've done. I thought you handled that very well. Were you able to sort of really feel what that would feel like? Yes. I had to do a lot of research. I had to imagine. to do a lot of research i had to imagine really what kind of research

um watching movies you know i watched uh some of my favorite films like memento you know with memory loss i watched the born identity oh yeah films i watched uh this film from nicole before i go to sleep where she wakes up every morning and doesn't know who she is or who her husband is. So and then also doing research on short term, long term memory loss, amnesia, all of that, because, you know, it does happen. And I didn't want to play the character one note. I didn't want her to be like disoriented the entire show, the entire season. like disoriented the entire show, the entire season. Right. Because what I'm finding is when you can't remember something,

it's frustrating for you. Yeah. You know, the person. You're like, you're mad at yourself. And trying to hide that frustration and also get answers from people that you don't know if you can trust because you don't know who did this to you. Right. And my character wakes up in the middle of the boat. She has no idea who she is or what happened to her. And she's going on this hunt for self,

this search for self-identity. And she's frustrated, but she also has to get answers. She doesn't know who to trust. It's's yeah it's it's uh it's tough and there's a horrible vulnerability to that oh man i couldn't even imagine because you you know you naturally want to be protect yourself but you have no fucking idea who to trust or what happened to your brain and you just have to move through the world like that. Yeah, you don't. It's frightening. Yeah. It's frightening. I think, you know, this show, one of the reasons I signed on

was what it said about how we treat our vets. I play a vet. Yeah. And Walter Cruz, who's played by the incomparable Stefan James, he also is a vet. He's great. He deals with trauma. And, you know, it had a lot to say about how we treat our vets when they come from war.

You know, what kind of resources are we putting into mental health? What type of education, you know, are we giving to around what it means to show up for our for our vets when they're having PTSD PTSD episode? This also talks about what it means to be a citizen over, you know, a capitalist in capitalism, what it means to show up for your people and want the health and the well-being over capitalism. And it has a lot to say about corporations. Yep. And how lots of them, you know, have historically, and even we're seeing now, they put capitalism over integrity, over truth. Of course. Are you kidding me?

It's like they're opening up states with the disease rampaging, you know, just because people are there. They're playing off on people's. We're bored. We're tired of it. We want to believe it's gone. And this is an amazing example of what we're dealing with, with not only the police brutality protests and, but with COVID-19 that, you know, the people have had enough of this shit. I mean, and obviously, you know, I'm not a person of color, so I'm not speaking from that place, but just with,

you know, people like with corporate interests and the interests of capitalism, you know, basically saying that they don't, they don't care enough about people that if they die, as long as the system sustains, like right now, I don't care enough about people that if they die, as long as the system sustains. Like right now, I don't know how you feel, but in the face of all this, I have no idea what's going to happen at all anymore.

Do you? You know what? You got to think about chattel slavery. Okay. That was born out of capitalism. Right. Capitalism. Right.

Right. You think about where we are now with COVID-19 and COVID-19 is killing black people disproportionately. Yes. Right. Yeah. And black people, black and brown people are our essential workers like telling us to go back to work, telling people in my family to go back to work in my community, go back to work is putting them at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and dying from our healthcare systems because of systemic racism. We don't have, our healthcare is not the same as white folks and those who are privileged in this company, in this country. And all of this is connected. Yeah, absolutely. And for me, you know, I know that you're saying, like, I can't speak, you know, for black folks. No, you can't. But you can have conversations with other white people.

Yes. You can have conversations about the why. Why are we saying black lives matter as though black people are objects? Right. And not humans and subjects to be studying. We are brilliant, but why are we, you in your living rooms, or why are you afraid, and not specifically speaking to you, but why are white people afraid to have those conversations? And my ask is that white people have these conversations because white people are the people who who can only fix this.

The systemic racism. This is a conversation that white people have to have about their privilege in this country. This is a conversation that you have to have about your ancestors who started who started the import, importing of our people into this country to work and to do the labor that you didn't need. For nothing, right. Nothing, period. Why did the police start? It started from slavery,

when they were catching other slaves, helping, working with slave owners. So those conversations and that reading that needs to be, that needs to be had, that's work that white people are going to have to do. And, you know, we're going to keep speaking out. We're going to keep protesting. We're going to keep doing what we have been doing. We are going to continue to show up for our people, but this is not going to end unless white people really dismantle the system of white supremacy. This is not going to end until you dismantle systemic racism, dismantle everything that's happening in the police forces.

And until we really defund police, you know, defund them and use that money to reinvest in health care, to reinvest in education, reintegration into society. Absolutely. Because, see, we tried to do this in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Black people tried to pull themselves up from their bootstraps, the boots that we didn't come into this country having. Yeah. And that was burned down. The KKK, the police burned, bombed and burned down what we built. And until you start pouring into our communities, the talk is cheap. Well, I'll do what I can from where I am.

Thank you. You're welcome. And I appreciate you talking to me I'll do what I can from where I am. Thank you. You're welcome. And, uh, and, and I appreciate you talking to me and I'm a big fan of your talent. I think you're amazing. And,

uh, just please stay safe and keep doing what you do. I appreciate you. It was a pleasure to talk to you and, and to be able to, um, express how I'm feeling these days and, and to hear from you. And I look forward to your, you and to be able to express how I'm feeling these days and to hear from you. And I look forward to deeper allyship from you.

Okay. You got it. Thank you, Janelle. Take care. All right. That was the amazing Janelle Monae. It was nice talking to her. I think you can notice. Could you notice that I was a little nervous? You can see her in the newest Janelle Monae. It was nice talking to her. I think you can notice.

Could you notice that I was a little nervous? You can see her in the newest season of Homecoming on Amazon Prime Video. Her next film, Antebellum, comes out on August 22nd. Of course, all her records. Arc Android, The Electric Lady, Dirty Computer. Amazing. Okay, so now let me play some guitar. How about some Angry Blues?

Can we do that? Let's do that. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives. almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising.

Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.