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Music

Janelle Monae

JANELLE MONAE as part of Canadian Music Fest’s Indie Awards at the Royal York Hotel (100 Front West), Saturday (March 12), 11 pm. $30 or CMW wristband. cmw.net. See listing.

To know Janelle Monae as an artist, you have to understand a few things about her genetic composition.

The future-funk diva will help you in this regard. When asked about sharing a stage in December with her hero Stevie Wonder, Monae says his music is “part of my DNA.”

Questioned about a seemingly exhausting year in which she shot to stardom thanks to her fantastical take on soul and rock and gave a show-stealing performance at this year’s Grammys, Monae says her ability to stay emotionally balanced must be “part of my DNA.”

The Atlanta-based singer recites this phrase in robotic tones, making the biological reference all the more curious. She sounds like HAL 9000 explaining its programming or, perhaps more appropriately, Cindi Mayweather.

For the uninitiated, Mayweather is the central character in the bizarre narrative that weaves through the 18 tracks on Monae’s cosmic soul full-length debut, The ArchAndroid (Suites II And III, Bad Boy).

Therein, Monae is a time traveller from the year 2719 whose DNA is used to clone Mayweather, an android freedom fighter. The androgynous droid violates The Rules by becoming romantically involved with a human, triggering a hunt for her capture.

Mayweather represents “the other,” and as Monae explains it, her oppression is a metaphor for our culture’s racial and sexual discrimination.

A thrilling mixture of R&B, OutKast-style Atlanta funk, pastoral folk and glittery Judy Garland-like thea-trics, her music can’t be criticized for its lack of ambition. And as far as debuts go, it’s an outlandish way to introduce yourself. You have to wonder if anyone in Monae’s camp – fretting major label rep or concerned colleague – wanted to push the shutdown button on such heady sci-fi themes.

“The only resistance that comes at me is the resistance I give myself,” Monae says dryly. “I’m the only person who can make myself believe something isn’t going to work. So I deal with myself in that way. We have all these different voices saying, Ah, don’t do that,’ and I just try to break through and do something that’s who I am.”

Born in Kansas City, Kansas, she recalls growing up in an environment where drugs and violence claimed so many family members and friends that she eventually fled to New York City on a scholarship to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

But Monae never found her NYC groove, and after a few too many failed theatre auditions headed back south to Atlanta. If OutKast and their wild ideas could make it there, she felt certain that she had a shot. Living in a boarding house near the university, she sold demos to passing students.

OutKast’s Big Boi caught her at an open-mic night and shortly after put her on the Idlewild soundtrack. Two releases and four years of tuxedo-clad performances later, Monae is one of the fastest-rising stars in music today.

Staying true to her weirdness started well before The ArchAndroid. So did her obsession with the 1927 dystopian German film classic Metropolis, which inspired both the full-length and Monae’s first release, Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase), an EP launched in 2007 through Sean Combs’s Bad Boy label.

If all this sounds a bit too far out and creative to be under Puff Daddy’s mainstream auspices, well, that’s because he’s had little or no say. Monae does all the musical production and writing within the confines of her Atlanta record label/collective, the Wondaland Arts Society.

“Music is our weapon,” the 25-year-old deadpans about WAS’s mission statement. “We consider ourselves individuals who want to break through race and gender, which are barriers to reaching our goals. We want to create a different imprint.”

When Arcade Fire pulled off their Grammy coup, Monae was ecstatic. She lit up her Twitter with congratulatory messages, hailing it as a knockout victory for all independent artists in the music industry, including herself.

Hold on. Considering that her record is on a major label (Bad Boy is distributed through Atlantic, a subsidiary of Warner), her attitude is a little confusing.

Asked if she considers herself an independent, Monae says, “Absolutely. I have my own label, and with every single we function as an inde-pendent label. Atlantic is a great partner. They’re so supportive. That’s the blessing in it all.

“I was on tour with Arcade Fire. I love those guys, the way they work so hard, their do-it-yourself mentality. That’s how I got on my way – do it yourself, selling CDs out of a trunk.

“I’m so excited for Arcade Fire and Esperanza Spalding. She worked hard, writes all her own music, arranges. She’s groovy. Independent artists ruled the Grammys, and I’m inspired by that.”

In May she’ll join forces with crooning MJ sound-alike Bruno Mars for a co-headlining tour dubbed Hooligans In Wondaland. Mars, a former child performer who scored major success with his slickly produced combo of hip-hop, R&B balladry and by-the-numbers love lyrics, comes off as pretty conventional compared to Monae.

This observation doesn’t go over well. She responds in the voice of an unfriendly robot ready to rip my throat out.

“You feel like different artists can’t collaborate?” she asks scornfully.

“That’s part of the reason why we are collaborating. We actually have a lot in common. We both love music and creating in a live environment. And he’s a good person.

“That’s what’s wrong with your kind of thinking – it just works to segregate us.”

music@nowtoronto.com

Watch a video of Janelle Monae open for Arcade Fire in Toronto this past summer.

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