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wednesday, june 02, 2010, 7:35 am saving the world from bad music since last wednesday. WEDNESDAY | ARCHIVE | PEP SQUAD | MAILING LIST | GEAR | REQUEST LINE | ROCK DOC | CONNECT |
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as a teen, janelle monáe (born
janelle robinson) felt suffocated by the limited resources offered to her in her
native kansas city, so after high school she moved to nyc to attend the american
musical and dramatic academy. however, she soon realized that the roles
that she wanted didn’t exist. so she did what anyone would do upon realizing
that the are headed in the wrong direction in life: she moved to germany, then
atlanta with the hopes of becoming “the first pompadour wearing horse jockey”. she soon connected with outkast’s big boi at a horse farm; he was super-impressed with her talent and included her on four of his songs and a video. during that time, janelle created the android alter-ego, cindi mayweather. cindi mayweather, a messiah-esque, human loving figure lives in the android community of metropolis in the year 2719 and currently forms the conceptual focus of her studio work. in 2007, the “high funkstress” recorded her first ep, metropolis: suite i (the chase). her original intent was to release the "suite" in four parts via her website. that changed however, when she signed with sean combs' label, bad boy records. the label decided to add two tracks and release as an ep, ultimately earning a 2009 grammy nomination. on may 18, 2010, the second and third suites were released together forming the contents of her first lp, the archandroid (suited ii and iii). the futuristic afro-punk, funk concept album was inspired by and named after fritz lang’s silent film, metropolis. “the archandroid is a soaring, orchestral trip enlivened with blockbuster vocals, mysterious imagery, and notes of 60s pop and jazz. it’s an organic symphonic sound,” said janelle. “the album is an ‘emotion picture’; we wanted the story to be very compelling, but we also wanted to make sure that the journey we’re taking people on makes them feel like they’re watching one big emotion picture.” click here for a bunch of videos. click here to listen to a may 14, 2010 all things considered story recorded by npr. don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website. check here to see if janelle monáe has any gigs scheduled near you. as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand). incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states. that my friend, bites. janelle monáe is funk-tacular. if you agree, please spread the word (about the band and this site). don't worry if you missed the tame impala profile from last week: here it is.
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