Janelle Monae biography

Since the publication of The Wizard of Oz in September of 1900, citizens throughout the world have come to realize that fantasies can come from the tiniest, nondescript places, and that the most wondrous journeys can begin in your own backyard— especially if your home is located in Greater Kansas City, Kansas. Like Dorothy, the aspiring songstress, producer and actress Janelle Monáe is a native of Kansas. And like Dorothy and other famous fairy tale heroines, Janelle has a big, bright smile and grand ambitions that involve leaps of imagination and different ways of seeing the world.

This imaginative sensibility started early at the age of nine when Janelle Monáe decided that the world should be a different color: "preferably purple." Thinking back on it now, Janelle says, "I was different. Of course, I did the normal, little-diva-in-training things like running up phone bills by dialing 1-800-Be-A-Star and singing Anita Baker’s ‘Sweet Love’ for anyone that would listen...but I was also on some different stuff...there was a lot of confusion and nonsense where I grew up so I reacted by creating my own little world...I began to see how music could change lives, and I began to dream about a world where every day was like anime and Broadway, where music fell from the sky and anything could happen..."

In pursuit of this world, Janelle moved to New York after high school so that she could attend The American Musical and Dramatics Academy, a musical theatre conservatory program. In this program, she fell in love with the soaring melodies and harmonic possibilities of classical music, as well as labored endlessly onstage and off to perfect her vocal instrument. Deciding to change the world beyond Broadway, she soon headed to Atlanta, the home of progressive soul and hip hop music to start her music career. "Musically, I was ready to do something big, wild and adventurous. And I knew if Atlanta was big enough for the vision of Outkast, it’d be big enough for me."

Within eight months of arriving in Atlanta, Janelle had met Nate "Rocket" Wonder and Chuck Lightning of Wondaland Productions and begun work on her masterful debut album Metropolis. "Metropolis is the place I’ve been dreaming about all these years. A city inside your head. It’s an adventure the music brings to life." Like a daring epic film, the album concerns a cybergirl’s struggle to love in the futuristic city of Metropolis. With such innovative subject matter, it is no surprise that Metropolis doesn’t sound like your average R & B record.

In fact, many of the songs sound simply otherworldly: "Violet Stars Happy Hunting" sounds like a frantic Disney song played by the Sex Pistols; the achingly beautiful, string-laden "Cindi" sounds like a moving Broadway classic crafted by Rogers and Hammerstein; "Many Moons" sounds like an outtake from a haunted opera, complete with doo-wop sass, Hendrixian guitar, booming drums and stabs of spooky organ; while "Metropolis" is a soulful blue waltz through a Bladerunner-like world where cyborgs fall in love with humans at their own peril.

Outside of these mind-blowing musical achievements, Janelle has stayed busy: collaborating with Big Boi of Outkast on the celebrated song "Call the Law" on the Outkast album Idlewild, gracing the cover of Creative Loafing and finding new fans through feature stories in Vibe Magazine, Interview Magazine, Blag and Atlanta Peach; planning an innovative release of Metropolis that will bring its futuristic sounds to the public through four collectible mini-albums or suites; and teaming with her producers and colleagues at Wondaland Productions to found her own record company known as the Wondaland Arts Society.

The first suite of Metropolis (known as The Chase) was released on August 24, 2007, and it quickly became an underground sensation, landing on many best-of-the-year lists and selling 10,000 copies, while also garnering the attention of major artists and producers such as Sean "Diddy" Combs, Dallas Austin, Cee-lo and Pete Wentz (of Fall Out Boy). However, even with all this success, Janelle is surprisingly grounded and clear-eyed about the future: "I feel so blessed. I have so many people I look up too: Bjork, Outkast, Colonel Sanders, Mick Jagger, James Brown, Madonna...I want to take the things they’ve taught me to the stars...."