Janelle Monáe: Reclaiming the History of the Future
A quick search of the etymology of the word “music” reveals its origins as rooted in the Greek word “mousike” meaning “art of the Muses” or “pertaining to the Muses” and finally “muse” described as “inspiring goddess of a particular poet” and from the Old French word “muser, to be absorbed in thought, to ponder, dream, wonder…” (Harper). It is precisely these meanings rooted in reflection, creativity, and dreaming that Janelle Monáe’s work brings not only to the field of music, but also to Black Feminist Theory. Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1985, Janelle Monáe Robinson is an accomplished singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, business woman, artist and more. One of the founders of the Wondaland Arts Society, Monáe’s discography consists of her 2007 EP Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase), The ArchAndroid in 2010, and The Electric Lady in 2013 all of which are set in a dystopian futuristic world featuring Monáe as an android called Cindi Mayweather.
Monáe’s song and music video Q.U.E.E.N featuring Erykah Badu on her latest album, The Electric Lady, employs Afrofuturist conventions to pay homage to and propel the work of her Black feminist foremothers in the fight for the freedom of expression and self love of Black women and other marginalized identities.
Afro-futurism:
One of the ways that Monáe intentionally contributes to the field of Black feminist theory is through her conscious engagement with afrofuturism as a medium through which she not only escapes oppression, but also reclaims an erased narrative and history of oppressed Black folk. Afrofuturism was first coined by Dery in his 1994 Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cybercuture and was described as “African American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future… [to project] black futures derived from Afrodiasporic experiences” (Yaszek). Afrofuturism scholar, Kodwo Eshun, in his analysis of Afrofuturism, concludes that “[a]frofuturism may be characterized as a program for recovering the histories of counter-futures created in a century hostile to Afrodiasporic projection” (Eshun). From twentieth century black writers such as Samuel Delaney, Octavia E. Butler, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, and Nalo Hopkinson to musicians and performers like Sun Ra, George Clinton’s Parliament Funkadelic, Erykah Badu, and Janelle Monáe, themes of time travel, space, technology, and escapism permeate afrofuturist art.
The function of time in Q.U.E.E.N feat. Erykah Badu:
One of the permeating themes employed in afrofuturist writing and art is the manipulation of space and time in an effort to re-define the distorted history of black folk and to directly link blackness with the future (Morris). Janelle Monáe’s manipulation of time in the music video Q.U.E.E.N is not only a direct engagement with Afrofuturism, but also illuminates and continues Morris’ observation of the overlap and relationship that exists between black feminist thought and afrofuturism. Directed by Alan Ferguson, the music video of Q.U.E.E.N is set in “The Living Museum,” an imagined museum space existing in the future. From the very beginning of the video, Monáe alludes to time as an avenue through which to explore themes of policing black bodies and reclaiming erased narratives.
Monáe alludes to time as an avenue through which to reclaim erased narratives. As the opening credits roll, the voice of a white woman whose identity is later portrayed as the museum guide is heard saying:
It’s hard to stop rebels that time travel, but we at the time counsel pride ourselves on doing just that. Welcome to the Living Museum where legendary rebels throughout history have been frozen in suspended animation. Here in this particular exhibit, you’ll find members of Wandaland and their notorious leader, Janelle Monae along with her dangerous accomplice, Badoula Oblongata. Together, they launched project Q.U.E.E.N, a musical weapon’s program in the 21st century. Researchers are still deciphering the nature of this program and hunting the various freedom movements that Wondaland disguised as songs, emotion pictures, and works of art. (Q.U.E.E.N)
Images of Black folks ‘frozen in suspended animation” and Black iconography invite an examination into the ways whiteness uses Black folks for entertainment and profit.
As the museum guide continues her oration, two young Black females walk over to the record player where Q.U.E.E.N starts playing. Ferguson and Monáe’s choice to use two young Black females as the interrupters of white supremacy serves as one of the first intentional allusions to Monáe’s call for activism. The imagery of two, young, Black women, awakening, both physically and metaphorically, the members of Wandaland is a commentary on the power of Black women working in concert with each other. It is directly in conversation with Morris’ insistence that “blacks fundamentally are the future and that Afrodiasporic cultural practices are vital to imagining the continuance of human society” (Morris).
The aesthetic in afrofuturism can also function as a space for Black women to engage with the intersection of topics such as race, gender, and sexuality. 4:13 minutes into the video, Badoula Oblongata, aka Erykah Badu, walks across a wall of clocks to join forces with Janelle Monáe. The visual symbolism of a Black woman walking through time to join forces with another Black woman indexes not only the barriers that white supremacy has created between Black women, but also supports the consistently interwoven theme of the power in building community with Black women.
Pleasure Politics in Q.U.E.E.N feat. Erykah Badu
Afrofuturism allows Janelle Monáe not only the space to explore oppression as experienced by Black folks, but also provides a way through which to examine and critique pleasure politics in relation to Black women. In her essay “Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic as Power*” Audre Lorde invites readers to understand “the erotic” as a source of immense power that has been transformed into something to be feared, psychotic, and trivialized.
“When I speak of the erotic then, I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of that which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives” (Lorde, 55).
It is precisely this kind of reclaiming that Janelle Monáe attempts to achieve in Q.U.E.E.N both visually as well as phonetically. The majority of the song is phrased in the form of questions intended to elicit a serious investigation of the politics of black women’s pleasure. Monáe begins the conversation by addressing the policing tone that she experiences as a Black woman by simply walking into a room: “I can’t believe all of the things they say about me, Walk in the room they throwin’ shade left to right” (Q.U.E.E.N). Monáe’s experience of hyper-visibility is always contextualized in critique and policing. Richardson again enters in conversation with this notion of Black women experienced as existing on one of two extremes of either hyper-visibility or unsightliness. Monáe’s questions of “is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror?/ Am I a freak for getting down?… And is it rude to wear my shades? Am I a freak for dancing around?” are directed to herself, her community, as well as towards her oppressors (Q.U.E.E.N). In voicing these questions, Monáe exposes the ridiculous questioning that Black women experience while imbibing a sense of unapologetic ownership of her erotic.
I’m not qualified to judge anyone. If you listen to the lyrics of Q.U.E.E.N, there’s a question being asked. “Is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror?” These are things that women need to ask themselves…“Are we in control of our bodies? Are we trying to make money and bring attention using our bodies? What types of things can we do to promote more or less misogyny, or less sexism?…How can we redefine what it means to be sexy?”- Janelle Monáe (Lester).
Monáe’s Q.U.E.E.N eloquently envisions a future of electric ladies. Her call for activism and insistence on knowing the erotic within oneself is perhaps most evident towards the end of the song where Monáe, wearing a black tuxedo, a conscious effort to pay homage to her parents and folks in the working class, addresses her generation in a rap (‘Janelle Monáe, Bio). As she addresses her generation, Monáe gives an impassioned recap of the points she has just discussed throughout her song. Positioned at the center of the stage with a spotlight on her, Monáe places herself in a position of a fierce activist calling out “electric sheep” who follow blindly to be “electric ladies” and “preach.”As she brings home the story of the captivity, marginalization, and oppression of Black people she refuses to sit by idly.
Monáe is one of many brilliant and hardworking Black female artists who consistently and intentionally create work that speaks to Black feminist theories. Her engagement with afro-futurism and Black feminist theory is prominent throughout her album The Electric Lady (2013) and appears as theme throughout her other work. Though she has garnered a significant amount of attention, a large part of her ability to enter spaces of power has been due to the support of other famous male figures like Sean “Puff” Diddy and Prince. As Battan notes, “On one hand, she’s got Prince making the case that she should be on stage at the biggest annual televised celebration of Black music. On the other hand, she kind of needs Prince to make the case that she should be on stage at the biggest annual televised celebration of black music” (Battan). It is precisely this notion of the “need” for an artist as big as Prince to bring her visibility that indexes the inherent lack of space and invisibility of Black women in spaces dominated by white male patriarchy. Serious engagement with and readings of her work as centralized in Black feminist thought and afro-futurism are vital to the future of all human life.
References:
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Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. 53–59. San Francisco: The Crossing Press, 1978. Print.
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Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Vintage, 1973.
Q.U.E.E.N. Dir. Alan Ferguson. Perf. Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu. USA Atlantic Records. 2013. Music Video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEddixS-UoU
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