What you need to know
Janelle Monae may just have abilities that the rest of us don’t understand yet.
In a new conversation with Lucy Dacus of Rolling Stone Musicians magazine, the “Make Me Feel” artist, 39, claims to have traveled back in time to the 1970s to attend a David Bowie concert, and the “Night Shift” singer, 30, looked visibly confused.
Monáe told the story, explaining her affinity for Halloween. “I’ve always loved transformation, and I think that’s what I love about Halloween, and that’s what I love about building worlds through music,” she said. “I think about when I saw David Bowie…”
“Did you see him?” Dacus asked.
“It was,” Monáe said with a straight face. “I went back to the 1970s and saw him do Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and it was incredible.”
Dacus, seemingly stunned, replied, “So you’re back.”
“Yeah, I was behind the scenes,” Monáe continued. “I jumped back into the 2000s thinking, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I thought, ‘I can do musicals, I can write music, I can write lyrics, and I can build a community around transformation and queerness, and it’s not about sexuality, it’s just about how I see the world.'”
Returning to the larger point about Halloween, Monáe explained that the holiday is a time when “I give myself permission for people to join my frequency.”
She added, “Let’s transform. Let’s play. Let’s step outside of the everyday and what people know us as everyday. Leave room for yourself to transform.”
Amy Harrity/Rolling Stone
Elsewhere in the interview, Monáe spoke about the script she is currently writing. This should be a great use of her imagination. “The goal was always to write the script, star in it, soundtrack it, produce it. I know a lot, but I have to fully realize the idea and I know I won’t stop until I do this,” she said.
“I wish I had a conduit that I could push into my brain, because it takes time…I have an idea and I have to talk to all these people to make it happen,” the multi-hyphenate performer continued. I was like, “I see!”
