A brazen, breathless power-pop workout
Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe is a rare thing in showbusiness: an openly queer, feminist spokesman and polymath who combines an impressive acting CV (including Oscar-winners
Hidden Figures and Moonlight) with an often self-produced music career steeped in political fervour.
In April, she released her fourth album, Dirty Computer, and an accompanying film, which further developed the complex, multilayered narrative involving her alter ego, Cindi Mayweather, that she has explored since her first EP.
On Monday night, Monáe returned to the UK for the first time in five years and, in the first of two sold-out London shows, displayed all of her talents in a brazen, breathless two-hour performance that delighted and challenged convention in equal measure.
Dirty Computer is so ram-packed with glitchy, enchanting and thoughtprovoking songs that Monáe could have got away with playing that album alone. But she also delved into her Grammy-nominated back catalogue, tantalisingly deconstructing hits such as Queen, Tightrope and
Electric Lady into their basic parts, before building them back up in ways that left the feverish crowd exultant.
Other artists save such tricks for earnest, selfindulgent encores, but Monáe’s charm has always lain in a certain cartoonish, irreverent playfulness, with the emphasis on making everything fun. Screwed, a laser-sharp party anthem that seamlessly blends political fury with a voracious sexual appetite, was delivered with a Betty Boop-style pastiche, Monáe’s enormous eyes widening with each enunciation.
She danced throughout, moonwalking around a podium in wet-look silver leggings against the percussive, strung out intro on Way You Make Me Feel and working with her four backing dancers in a winking routine to Yoga.
Monáe’s music is driven by shiny, smart production values that can risk smothering her voice. On stage, though, you can hear its range. She blends agenda-setting (“let the vagina have a monologue!”) rapped verses with vocals that are laden with glissando and, often, power.
Delicacy was saved for Pink
(for which she wore trousers that turned her entire lower half into an intimate part of the female anatomy) and seductive bedroom banger Primetime, which descended into the refrain from Purple Rain – a homage to Monáe’s most obvious influence. This was a high-powered pop show so relentless, so full-bodied that it left one feeling vaguely assaulted by its brilliance. Monáe treats the notions of womanhood and pop stardom in the same way: as if they were both eminently pliable. What she moulds them into is wondrous to behold.
Monáe’s charm has always lain in a certain cartoonish, irreverent playfulness, making everything fun