https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/22/you-dont-own-or-control-me-janelle-monae-on-her-music-politics-and-undefinable-sexuality

Monáe says the toughest part about staying living in the present in 2018 is moving forward in a world without her chief musical mentor. “It’s difficult for me to even speak about this because Prince was helping me with the album, before he passed on to another frequency,” she says. His sudden death was “a stab in the stomach. The last time I saw him was New Year’s Day. I performed a private party in St Bart’s with him, and after we sat and just talked for five hours. He was one of the people I would talk to about things, him and Stevie Wonder.” Both were among her earliest champions. Before The ArchAndroid was released, she sent each of them a copy, on CD-R, with a handwritten track list.

Prince not only encouraged her then, he lobbied for her first BET awards appearance and he performed on Electric Lady; when he died, he and Monáe were “collecting sounds” for Dirty Computer. “I wouldn’t be as comfortable with who I am if it had not been for Prince. I mean, my label Wondaland would not exist without Paisley Park coming before us,” Monáe says. She laughs a little. “He would probably get me for cussin’, but Prince is in that ‘free motherfucker’ category. That’s the category when we can recognise in each other that you’re also a free motherfucker. Whether we curse or not, we see other free motherfuckers. David Bowie! A free motherfucker. I feel their spirit, I feel their energy. They were able to evolve. You felt that freedom in them.”

Dusk is falling over the city as she gives this eulogy for her heroes, the artists who have so inspired her. “I dedicate a lot of my music to Prince, for everything he’s done for music and black people and women and men, for those who have something to say and also at the same time will not allow society to take the dirt off of them. It’s about that dirt, and not getting rid of that dirt,” she says, referring back to “the things that made us special” mentioned in the trailer.

Bowie and Prince probably did get scared too, Monáe reckons; her own risk is admitting her fears, which would seem to point to still more revelations to come in the full album. “Sticking up for those who are often left behind and don’t have a voice – doing that was one thing on film, but doing that in music is different because it’s all you,” she says. “So I can’t sit back here and tell you I’m confident and fearless. I’m terrified right now. Like, I don’t know how my family’s gonna react, I don’t know what people are going to say.”

What is the worst they could say? The thing she is most afraid of? She takes a deep breath. “I’m about to cry,” she says, and dabs briefly at her eyes as she collects herself. “I think – rejection. This may all be in my head, ’cause I have a tendency to overthink shit – I know that about myself. But I think: rejection. This started with me, with my feelings. But people want me to be an image that’s in their mind; what held me back was that I represent something to so many people and people put all this pressure on me to be just this one thing.”

Thanks Janelle. Looking forward to Dirty Computer.
Does anyone have an idea how many projects of other artist Prince was involved in at the time he passed?

Two songs from the new album are on iTunes. Make Me Feel is awesome and very Prince sounding.

She’s a bit overrated, don’t you think?

pricetag said:

She’s a bit overrated, don’t you think?

I don't think she's rated enough.