{"id":33036,"date":"2018-08-08T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=33036"},"modified":"2018-08-17T08:46:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T13:46:39","slug":"janelle-monae-all-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/janelle-monae-all-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Janelle Monae All Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Janelle Monae’s masterpiece album,\u00a0Dirty Computer<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, with its socially-conscious future funk and infectious grooves, is as good as it gets.\u00a0Without question, it’s best-album-of-2018-good.\u00a0 I’m blown away by how inventive and theatrical the album is while also blending multiple genres.\u00a0And did you check the liner notes? Read them as you listen to the album to up the ante on your listening experience. Like Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., with many layers of complexity,\u00a0Dirty Computer<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>gets better with every listen.<\/p>\n

Dirty Computer<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0a painstakingly conceived and executed work of art drawing on inspiration from the late, great Prince whose presence is ubiquitously felt throughout.\u00a0 Other sources of inspiration are Gloria Steinem,\u00a0 Barack O’bama’s 2008 “A More Perfect Union” speech, and myriad literary works including Toni Morrison’s\u00a0The Bluest Eye,\u00a0<\/em>Neil Gaiman’s\u00a0American Gods,\u00a0<\/em>Naomi Wolf’s\u00a0Vagina: A New Biography,\u00a0<\/em>and recently release film,\u00a0Black Panther<\/em>, among others.\u00a0 One article<\/a><\/strong> offers a recommended reading list “based on Mon\u00e1e\u2019s dystopian inspirations and Afrofuturist influences, based on a future that is diverse and representative of what some might consider subversion\u2014from being pansexual to polyromantic to black.”<\/p>\n

If Monae’s music signifies disruption, than by all means: crank the volume, and signify, people, because Monae’s America is the future. Dirty Computer’s America is not homogeneous, fixed, static, and beige,\u00a0\u00a0but\u00a0instead decidedly diverse, eclectic, colorful, fluid, shapeshifting, and prismatic. The May 1st 2018 issue of\u00a0The Economist\u00a0<\/em>called the album “protest music done right” and gave it praise for delivering a societal critique without being “self-congratulatory”. This great piece<\/a> <\/strong>from Philadelphia-based publication-The Inquirer<\/em>— analyzes\u00a0Dirty Computer<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>in the context of American Protest Music and compares the the album’s final track, “Americans”, to Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land is You Land” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”.\u00a0 Author Dan DeLuca sums up the album simply as “party-starting protest music, ” and that’s exactly what it is.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0it’s a\u00a0new kind of protest music. “Americans”, fused with O’bama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech,\u00a0 is an\u00a0electrifying anthem that conveys a powerful sense of change for the better, of a new day on the horizon.\u00a0Monae states that her intent is to inspire and uplift, and those intentions\u00a0are\u00a0apparent from start to finish in this album. \u00a0I love rolling my window down on a sunny day, cranking the volume, and singing along with Monae: “Just love me baby \/ love me for who I am \/ fallen angels \/ singing clap your hands \/ don’t try to take my country \/ I will defend my land \/ I’m not crazy, baby \/\u00a0naw \/\u00a0I’m American \/ I’m American\/ I’m American\/ I’m American. And check these verse lyrics:<\/p>\n

I like my woman in the kitchen\/ I teach my children superstitions\/ I keep my two guns on my blue nightstand\/ A pretty young thang, she can wash my clothes \/But she’ll never ever wear my pants.<\/h6>\n
Seventy-nine cent to your dollar\/ All that bullshit from white-collars \/You see my color before my vision \/Sometimes I wonder if you were blind \/ Would it help you make a better decision?<\/h6>\n

The message is powerful but you might not even realize you’re getting an education because you’ll be too busy grooving to notice, at least at first.<\/p>\n

What I love about this album is that it’s impossible for me to choose a favorite song.\u00a0In “I Like That,” Monae’s voice\u00a0flows effortlessly over a deep, droning drum & bass foundation and all the hits are in the right spot, complete with that TLC shout-out: “Sometimes a mystery, sometimes I’m free \/ Depending on my mood or my attitude \/ Sometimes I wanna roll or stay at home \/ Walking contradiction, guess I’m factual and fiction \/A little crazy, little sexy, little cool\/Little rough around the edges, but I keep it smooth \/I’m always left of center and that’s right where I belong \/I’m the random minor note you hear in major songs \/And I like that \/I don’t really give a fuck if I was just the only one\u00a0 who likes that. “I Like That”\u00a0is a testament to\u00a0being\u00a0fearless and\u00a0proud in your\u00a0skin\u00a0no matter what anybody else thinks. My absolute favorite line in the song appears when Monae recalls a memory from her past:\u00a0 I remember when you laughed when I cut my perm off \/And you rated me a six \/I was like, \u201cDamn\u201d\/But even back then with the tears in my eyes \/ I always knew I was the shit.” The rise and fall of the lyrics–the cadence–is as smooth as Monae’s voice and perfectly executed. I’m amazed by how she sculpts a song and meshes the verse within the constraints of the song structure.<\/p>\n

“I Got The Juice”, featuring Pharrell, is a slammin’ proclamation about owning one’s (fluid) sexuality. SPIN magazine referred to the tune\u00a0as “the best of Dirty Computer’s homages to Prince.”\u00a0(I can’t say I disagree although “Make Me Feel” would be a really obvious contender. More on that below.)\u00a0“I Got The Juice” echoes Prince’s “Cream” in how it oozes sex appeal; but this\u00a0smashing song\u00a0goes to eleven on a scale of 10. Just as the song builds to a crescendo and you think it’s going to cool off, it\u00a0 ramps up for one last feminist wave of\u00a0authority\u00a0when Monae powerfully declares: “If you try to grab this pussy cat \/ This pussy grab you back\u00a0” which is a clear response to President Trump’s infamous “grab her by the pussy”\u00a0statement\u00a0revealed from his pre-POTUS days and\u00a0now haunting him eternally.\u00a0 “I Got The Juice” is like an amped up “Holler Back Girl”, the femme-fatale tune recorded\u00a0in 2004 by Gwen Stefani. And like Stephani, Monae does not merely holler back. If Trump could forego the catcall and move straight to the\u00a0crotch grab, you know the appropriate feminist response is neither meek nor apologetic.<\/p>\n

An incredible rapper in her own right, Monae’s lyricism in “Django Jane” is punch-you-in-the-gut good. A Guardian<\/em> article entitled “You Don’t Own Or Control Me”<\/a> <\/strong>looks closely at how personal and political apex in “Django Jane”, described as “Mon\u00e1e\u2019s rallying cry, a rebellious protest anthem for women in general (\u201cWe gave you life, we gave you birth, we gave you God, we gave you earth,\u201d she sings….[S]he puts down mansplaining with a forceful, deadpan lyric: \u201cHit the mute button, let the vagina have a monologue.\u201d It\u2019s one of Mon\u00e1e\u2019s most political songs to date, and also one of her most personal, a revelation for a singer whose critics have called her presence \u201ccerebral\u201d, her music \u201ccontrolled\u201d, her \u201cconstructed\u201d look.” The song may be more aptly described as a battle cry, in that the speaker militantly confront the treatment of Black Americans, and particularly Black women. Monae says that Django is ‘a\u00a0response to me feeling the sting of the threats being made to my rights as a woman, as a black woman, as a sexually liberated woman, even just as a daughter with parents who have been oppressed for many decades. Black women and those who have been the \u2018other\u2019, and the marginalised in society \u2013 that\u2019s who I wanted to support, and that was more important than my discomfort about speaking out.'”<\/p>\n

In trying to wrap up this post, I’ll just say: give this record a spin. Be blown away by the method and the message. \u00a0Want to hear the MOST PRINCE-Y song on the album? Check out “Make Me Feel”: the Prince undertones and overtones are undeniable in the funk guitar rhythm and Monae’s vocal gymnastics – especially when Monae sings “good God \/ I can’t help it \/ Ah!”<\/p>\n

In saving the best for last, Monae\u00a0reserves the final dedication in her album notes for\u00a0Prince-her muse and mentor-and you can’t help but think about how proud he would be of her incredible accomplishment.<\/p>\n

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Janelle Monae’s masterpiece album,\u00a0Dirty Computer, with its socially-conscious future funk and infectious grooves, is as good as it gets.\u00a0Without question, it’s best-album-of-2018-good.\u00a0 I’m blown away by how inventive and theatrical the album is while also blending multiple genres.\u00a0And did you check the liner notes? Read them as you listen to[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[2844,4591],"class_list":["post-33036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-music-cds","tag-music-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-8AQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33036"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33112,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33036\/revisions\/33112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}