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"Noted R&amp;amp;B eccentric Janelle Monae has long been praised for her original style&amp;amp;#8212;Those black-and-white mod tuxes and androgynous looks? Legendary.&amp;amp;#8212;but today, we celebrate her music. Her sophomore album, The Electric Lady, is out (Click this link to buy on iTunes!) and if you thought 2010&amp;#x27;s universally acclaimed breakthrough The ArchAndroid was mind-blowing, wait till you hear this record. Now in Suites IV and V, this soulful, deeply eclectic concept album documents the adventurous saga of Janelle&amp;#x27;s fictional Cindi Mayweather android character and connects powerfully to the heart behind its creator, as Janelle waxes poetic about love, feminism, politics, and religion. I had the chance to chat&amp;amp;#8212;sadly, only briefly&amp;amp;#8212;with Ms. Genius and pick her brain. It should go without saying that I seriously could&amp;#x27;ve talked to this dynamic woman for hours. Read on... Glamour: Tell us about The Electric Lady album concept. I know it&amp;#x27;s a continuation of your character Cindi Mayweather&amp;#x27;s story. But could you explain your point of view with this part of the saga for our readers? Janelle Monae: Well, Cindi Mayweather and I share the same DNA. She is considered to be the other. The story is so important because when I made The ArchAndroid, she realized her superpowers, which is the prequel. Why was Cindi Mayweather going to be disassembled? That&amp;#x27;s where we are, just enjoying the backstory&amp;amp;#8212;but Cindi Mayweather is Electric Lady #1, that&amp;#x27;s what they called her before the ArchAndroid. It all ties together. I think there are many different &amp;quot;electric ladies,&amp;quot; including myself, but Cindi&amp;#x27;s in the future, and I&amp;#x27;m here in the past. She encouraged me to speak from my heart on this album. I&amp;#x27;m a private person, so it&amp;#x27;s definitely more revealing for me in terms of certain things. The title came to me, almost like a dream. Watch Janelle let her hair down for her newest single, &amp;quot;Dance Apocalyptic&amp;quot;: How so? Janelle: When I was on tour I did a lot of painting and singing onstage in front of thousands of people and I would paint this female silhouette every single night. What ended up happening was that I talked to my therapist about this painting, and she encouraged me to name the work and to show it in a gallery. I was having a hard time coming up with names because I thought, Whoever this is, she is not gonna be marginalized. There were some interviews I paid attention to while I was painting and the words that reached my spirit the most were &amp;quot;the electric lady&amp;quot; because of the electricity I felt as I looked at the colors and the vibrancy of each painting. I saw this vision as a new breed of the 21st-century woman: What does she think about love, politics, sexuality, and religion? She&amp;#x27;s very outspoken, and I figured it was time to talk about her origins. The very same themes are what got Cindi Mayweather in trouble, so that told it me it was time to go back to the origins of her story. Last night, she performed &amp;quot;Dance Apocalyptic&amp;quot; on Letterman. Phoebe sent this to me, and it&amp;#x27;s to die for: I&amp;#x27;m really into your lyrics this time around. It is much more personal, and especially on songs like &amp;quot;Q.U.E.E.N.,&amp;quot; I like that you take a stand for what you believe in. Janelle: Honestly, that hasn&amp;#x27;t changed much for me. I still have the same goals: I want to stand up for young girls in my community; I want to create a billion electric ladies. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter your hair color, size, what-have-you; what we have in common is the ability to service and nurture our communities to thrive. It starts with one person. Just like a rumor can get started, so can inspiration, so I pray that my music can inspire people to reach out and help lift one another up. We&amp;#x27;re so many years after Dr. King&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;I Have a Dream&amp;quot; speech, and it&amp;#x27;s like, where are we as a world? Electric ladies are very much focused on positive, generational change. Speaking of queens and electric ladies and such, catch the amazing video for the Erykah Badu-assisted &amp;quot;Q.U.E.E.N.&amp;quot; below: On &amp;quot;Victory&amp;quot; you talk about finding &amp;quot;glory in the little things.&amp;quot; What do you find glory in nowadays? Janelle: I&amp;#x27;m in the middle of promoting this album and working on music for the next album. Life itself is glorious. I don&amp;#x27;t know when I will expire, and I pray my music will outlive me. But as much as it&amp;#x27;s nice to think about that, I&amp;#x27;m really working to enjoy the present and the climb of this journey. &amp;quot;What an Experience&amp;quot; talks about that: Enjoy your family, enjoy your friends, enjoy the experience of growing with people in the world. As far as things I&amp;#x27;m obsessed with, it&amp;#x27;s remaining creative and inspired by art. I love painting, sketching, and exploring the realms of my voice. Thank you for chatting with us! I&amp;#x27;m sorry our time was limited. Janelle:No problem! And if it&amp;#x27;s OK, I just want to reiterate how hard we worked on this album. Live instrumentation is integral to my music, and in my opinion, I&amp;#x27;ve had some of the finest musicians in the industry working with me on this. I love the songs I made with Miguel, Erykah Badu, Solange, Esperanza Spalding, of course, one of my heroes, the legendary Prince, and more. The full experience was the product of a lot of thought, and I hope that people can be empowered. Obviously, we love her, but isn&amp;#x27;t this woman brilliant? Will you be buying The Electric Lady?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/09/janelle-monae>