Janelle Monáe: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

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• Jazmine Sullivan
• Gnarls Barkley
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• OutKast
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• David Bowie

• Big Boi

Birth Name:

Janelle Monáe Robinson

Genres:

R&B and Soul Music, Rap & Hip-Hop Music, Rock Music, Alternative Rock Music

Decades Active:

2000's

Growing up, Janelle Monáe (born Janelle Robinson) felt constrained by the limited resources offered to her in her greater Kansas City, KS home. When she finished high school, she moved to New York to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy with the intention of pursuing musical theater, but in 2004, after performing in a couple of offBroadway shows and realizing there weren't the roles available to her that she wanted, she moved to Atlanta to try her luck there. She soon joined a band and began touring the local college circuit, where she eventually got in touch both with whom would become her partners in Wondaland Arts Society a collective/label that looked to promote experimental arts and OutKast's Big Boi. The rapper was so impressed by what he heard of her he put two of her songs on his 2005 compilation, Got Purp, Vol. 2. Monáe also showed up on Outkast's 2006 soundtrack, Idlewild, even appearing in the video for "Morris Brown," and in August 2007 she released the first of an originally planned four Metropolis installments, or suites, an EP entitled The Chase, a concept piece revolving around a character named Cindi Mayweather and the year 2719. The album which melded cabaret, hiphop, rock, and soul was well received, which helped bring the singer into the radar of Sean "Diddy" Combs and his Bad Boy Records. Rumors about a signing soon appeared, rumors that were finally quelled in March 2008, when Diddy officially announced Monáe as the newest member of his roster. Monáe, for her part, promised that the move was not going to compromise any of her artistic integrity or creativity, and the releases of the Metropolis EP and the fulllength Metropolis (which was coproduced by Big Boi) were scheduled for later in the year.

- Marisa Brown, All Music Guide