Androids have sex too: An Afrodiasporic pop outfit for the queer sex goddess.
A Janelle Monáe album is always an event: the artist (she came out as a non-binary person last year, but continues to use female pronouns in addition to the English “they”) takes her time to create whole worlds, in which their albums were positioned. Ever since she burst into the public eye with her EP METROPOLIS: SUITE I (THE CHASE) in 2007, it has been a world inspired by Fritz Lang and Blade Runner, populated by androids, highly conceptual and dystopian.
The era is now over after three albums, short films and a volume of short stories – now it’s getting juicy. And anyone who has seen the video for “Lipstick Lover” knows that this does not mean fruit juice. Rather, in THE AGE OF PLEASURE, Monáe celebrates queer black joie de vivre, lust, liberation and empowerment. It celebrates hedonism, but it always remains a political one – surviving as a queer working-class Black person and living a joyful, free life are political acts in and of themselves.
Janelle Monáe manages to combine the irrepressible variety of the sound into a harmonious whole
“No I’m not the same”, she already calls out to us on the opener “Float”. Although that’s not quite true: she remains true to the Afrofuturistic foundation of her soundscapes, but interprets them differently this time. This is already evident in their features: There is Grace Jones, for example, who is allowed to deliver spoken word in French; Fela Kuti’s son Seun, who continues Egypt 80’s legacy as bandleader; but also dancehall legend Sister Nancy and many more. Stylistically she plays with Afrobeat and Afrobeats like Amapiano (“Phenomenal”), and of course reggae and riddims.
The constant self-adulation (“If I could fuck me right here right now, I would do that”, for example on “Water Slide”) can be a bit too much of a good thing at some point, but that’s okay with the next beat at the latest over: Janelle Monáe manages to bring the irrepressible diversity of the sound together into a harmonious whole, to which you can wonderfully let the sun shine on your stomach for the rest of the summer – and at the same time plan the sex-positive, queer-feminist liberation of the world.