Janelle Monáe
Dirty Computer
Album Release Date: April 27th, 2018
I've been a fan of Janelle Monáe ever since I heard her on Outkast's "Call the Law" (from their 2006 album Idlewild) when she was 20-years-old. Since then she's released multiple LPs, EPs, and singles, showing she's a creative powerhouse not only musically—she sings, raps, and writes her own songs—but also as a dancer, actress, and fashion trendsetter. She has also become a feminist icon of gender parity, sex-positivity, and LGBT+ rights, speaking out against homophobia, misogyny, police brutality, and racism. In a unique slant on the R&B genre, Monáe inhabits the creative persona of an android character in a dystopian science fiction world—a fictional universe that serves as a metaphorical framework for both alienation and emancipation as linked to racial, sexual, and gender identity. And her music has a theatrical quality, with elements of old-fashioned show tunes, big-band jazz, and cinematic, soundtrack-like orchestral arrangements—which is augmented by her fashionista image; she usually wears a fancy black-and-white tuxedo, her hair styled in a pronounced pompadour.
Dirty Computer, Monáe's 3rd album, continues the cyborg theme established on her debut EP Metropolis (2007) and first two LPs The ArchAndroid (2010) and Electric Lady (2013). Her narrative calls to mind feminist writer Dr. Donna Haraway, whose works invoke cyborg imagery as an analogy for women in today's society; the duality of a cyborg (cybernetic + organic) representing natural physical and psychological states of women juxtaposed with versions of themselves shaped by technology and contemporary environments (check out Haraway's 1991 essay collection Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature). I don't know if Monáe was influenced by Haraway, but there are certainly parallels between the two as Monáe explores similar themes through music as Haraway does through academia. Some kind of postmodern priestess, the 32-year-old Ms. Monáe is a multitalented showwoman who has bloomed into a full-fledged superstar; evoking qualities of heavyweight performers from Lauryn Hill to David Bowie but with her own distinct style. Her range is reflected in the diverse cast of guest musicians on her albums: electro-poet Saul Williams, psych-rock band Of Montreal, R&B queen Erykah Badu, Outkast's Big Boi, and legends like Prince and Stevie Wonder, among others.
Production-wise, Dirty Computer is Monáe's most pop-oriented album to date; a thematically-linked collection of 14 polished R&B-synth-pop tracks. But it's less of a concept album than her other LPs, which balanced radio-friendly generics with genre-bending experimentation—blending HipHop, R&B, soul, and jazz with electronica, rock, folk, and even classical music elements. But with Dirty Computer Monáe sticks to overall lighter, more conventional pop soundscapes.
But content-wise Dirty Computer unveils a pointedly political Janelle Monáe, her voice resonating to depths previously unattained on subjects of womanhood, sexuality, gender, and race—a notable evolution in her status as a multifaceted performer. She first unleashed her political side with the 2015 single "Hell You Talmbout (Protest)", a striking tribute to victims of police murder, and Dirty Computer carries on her progressive agenda. Considering the current U.S. administration's attack on marginalized populations, Monaé's politicization is a revolutionary stride toward the best parts of identity politics; embracing values of unity in diversity in the face of superpowers who seek to divide and destroy. After shunning questions about her sexuality for years, Janelle Monáe publicly came out as queer in a recent Rolling Stone interview; while saying she had formerly identified as bisexual—an orientation reflected in her dual human/android identity—she now also describes herself as "pansexual", and as "a free-ass motherfucker".
Mellow 2-minute opener "Dirty Computer" establishes the album's sex-and-technology motif. To the backdrop of doo-wop-like "woo"-ing courtesy of the Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson, Monáe croons: "Searching for someone to fix my drive / Text message caught up in the sky / Oh if you love me, won't you please reply? / Oh can't you see, that it's only me / Your dirty computer?" On second track "Crazy, Classic, Life" Monáe's politics kick in: "We don't need another ruler / We don't need another fool / I am not America's nightmare / I am the American cool." A celebration of African American female resistance against racism and misogyny, the song concludes with a righteous rap verse: "Remember when they told you I was too black for ya? / And now my black poppin' like a bra-strap on ya / I was kicked out, said I'm too loud / Kicked out, said I'm too proud / But all I really ever felt was stressed out / Kinda like my afro when it's pressed out."
Although always an impressive rapper even if a singer first, Monáe previously rapped only sparingly, on 2 or 3 tracks per album as a rare bonus feature. But on Dirty Computer she turns it up, with at least one rap verse in nearly every song. Album standout "Django Jane" is Janelle's first rap-only outing, a single long verse of ill rhymes like: "Black girl magic, y'all can't stand it / Y'all can't ban it, made out like a bandit / They been tryin' hard just to make us all vanish / I suggest they put a flag on a whole 'nother planet." Monáe's exuberant delivery of lines like "we gon' start a motherfuckin' pussy riot", "let the vagina have a monologue", and "mansplaining, I fold 'em like origami" elevate what might've otherwise been middle-of-the road to instead play as a decisively prescient HipHop protest anthem for our time, and an instant classic.
Black Lives Matter, Me Too, police brutality, and sexual liberation are dominant subjects on the album—which is aurally more refined than Monáe's earlier works. And this is where Dirty Computer presents a double-edged sword; on one hand it shows Monáe's growth as an artist-turned-activist. But on the other hand the music relies too heavily on cutesy, motivational pop song leanings and overused production norms. Monáe has been a star for years, but until recently she still felt like a bit of a fringe player with one foot in the pop scene and one in the alternative scene. But her fame has advanced with solid acting turns in hit movies like Moonlight and Hidden Figures (both 2016), and her quirky android schtick has developed into a slick brand—perhaps an inevitable outcome with talent like hers. With its sparkly clean presentation, positive messages, and inspirational energy, Dirty Computer will surely expand Monáe's audience, as she moves more into the mainstream and further away from the imaginative, alternative R&B of her past—if only slightly.
The sex-positive dance-pop anthem "Screwed" continues the robot-human analogy, playing with triplicate meanings of the word: "screwed" as in having sex, being out of luck, or like a Frankenstein creation held together with screws. Here Monáe tells us: "You fucked the world up now / We'll fuck it all back down / Let's get screwed." Like most songs on the album "Screwed" has an ironic sensibility in its contrasting of an upbeat, light melody with cynical lyrics: "I hear the sirens calling / And the bombs are falling in the streets / We're all screwed." The song ends once again with a rap verse of potent feminist-slanted rhymes like: "Hundred men telling me to cover up my areolas / While they blocking equal pay, sippin' on they Coca Colas / Fake news, fake boobs, fake food, what's real? / Still in the Matrix eatin' on the blue pills."
The bouncy Prince-influenced "Make Me Feel" compared with the chilled-out "I Like That" shows Monáe equally capable with funky uptempo numbers as with slow jams. In "So Afraid" Monáe expresses her personal and professional insecurities, to sometimes moving and sometimes cheesy effect. And some fluffy if still moderately enjoyable fillers show up with "Take A Byte" (again with Brian Wilson), "Pynk" (featuring art-pop songstress Grimes), and "I Got the Juice" (with Pharrell Williams). But even with minor pitfalls the album still ultimately succeeds with its admirable political stance and messages of freedom from sexual and racial oppression, and Monáe remains an artist to watch.
Album closer "Americans" is an ambitious ode about misguided patriotism. The verses condemn American injustices: "Seventy-nine cents to your dollar / All that bullshit from white collars / You see my color before my vision"—and the chorus both celebrates and satirizes Americans' staunch resistance to injustices, whether real or imagined: "Don't try to take my country / I will defend my land / I'm not crazy, baby / I'm American." The song reiterates Dirty Computer's conundrum as an album endorsing a compassionate, inclusive, rebellious ideology opposing system corruption—but in a glitzy pop music format and commercial platform. Is this contradiction between content and form, between medium and message, or complement? Change the system from within, or without. It all resonates as a compelling collection of an accomplished yet still developing artist's inspired reflections of what it means to be young, black, queer, and female in America—or what it means even to be American at all these days.
• Nik Dobrinsky / Boy Drinks Ink
June 1st, 2018