Red Clay: Janelle Monae & (Extra)terrestriality
For those of us long smitten with Atlanta transplant Janelle Monae's quirky magistery, the singer's Diddy-vaulted profile, mediated by the underrated Outkast Big Boi, is as exciting as it is unnerving. Hollywood newest star, is well known to go for self to the great financial detriment of his artists and to shelve many a talent stale but he also creates an awareness and a fan base for which owning one's publishing just doesn't account. So I'm crossing my fingers for her conquest on the one hand and trawling pubs for informed and well-conceived coverage on the other.
Many contemporary writers have a strange rapport with Black music that isn't hyper hysteric booty poppin' R&B or rap in its lean/rock wit' or pop-shot guises and are thus inclined to blanket it all outsider. But it's not. Any student of Black music knows this. Blipster is bollocks as are any Blacked up designations since we inhabit the waterfront, even when confined to downtown blocks by Realtors and that rabid crow. Their are plenty antecedents for the extraterrestriality* in Black musical traditions as veteran critic and wordsmith Kandia Crazy Horse makes plain in "Singing the Cyber Blues", an unpacking of Janelle Monae's initial reception for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Atlanta's Monaé -- by way of Wyandotte County, Kan. -- seems like the freak of every week. She seems beyond space oddity, a quirkiness that has had her dubbed the "black Björk" -- although not the new heir of Labelle or David Bowie protégé Ava and her space-glam Astronettes....
Those calling Monaé a "black Björk" are missing the boat -- and that boat would be the Amistad -- and forgetting her less likely foremamas beyond the self-evident Baker, Nona Hendryx, and Grace Jones -- such as Stevie Wonder's late first wife, Syreeta Wright. Yet my recent retreat with Lady Syreeta's first two Wonder-produced solo long-players has been something of a revelation: the limited edition reissue of Syreeta/Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta (Hip-O Select/Motown, 2006) shows Monaé's preternatural shade dancing through Syreeta's highly romantic, space-rock take on "She's Leaving Home" with Wonder as deus ex Moog, and such strange gems as "Your Kiss Is Sweet," and its reprise, "Universal Sound of the World." Lovely 'Reeta deserves reinvestigation as the Afro-baroque yin to Grace Jones' Afro-punkette yang.
This is essential reading. For more, visit the Bay Guardian web site.
* And extrarrestriality is endemic to, maybe even synonymous with, many Black musical traditions. What is more atmospheric piercing than the spiritual?
Tags: Black, Janelle Monae, Kandia Crazy Horse, Music
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