Janelle Monae on Lauryn Hill, vinyl and ‘Dirty Computer’
NEW YORK — Janelle Monae doesn’t remember the first album she owned as a child, but the first one she spent her hard-earned money on? “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
“I just connected with Lauryn on many levels. The fact that she was a young black woman in America — she looked like a lot of the women in my family. …I just loved how she was able to bring her religious background, her singing and acting background together (and) her hip-hop background,” Monae recalled of Hill, whose solo debut celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and was the first hip-hop project to win the Grammy for album of the year.
“The fact that she was all of her(self) on her project felt inspiring to me, and I felt like I could be all of me and I didn’t have to pick one part of me.”
Monae might be music’s closest heir to Hill: She’s an artistic performer known for thought-provoking lyrical content — in rapping and singing — and her riveting roles in “Moonlight” and “Hidden Figures” established that music isn’t the only art form she shines in. While she has another movie, “Welcome to Marwen” with Steve Carell coming out in December, she had to turn down some roles to focus on latest album: “They went on to go to amazing people that I respect and admire and want to see shine.”
Monae spoke to The Associated Press as she was surrounded by music, literally — standing in the middle of Good Records NYC, the small, basement vinyl shop in Manhattan’s East Village. She walked around, looking at the various faces on the wall — some immediately recognizable, others not-so-much.
“What I love about record stores is people’s (album) covers used to be so amazing, that you just discover an artist just based off their artwork on their covers and their faces,” she said. “Because a lot of these folks I’m looking at, I’ve never heard of and now I’m so interested to listen to all of their albums because of the incredible cover art they have.”
“Dirty Computer,” Monae’s latest album, unfortunately isn’t available at the store: That’s because it sold out.
“I can’t believe my vinyl sold out. Man, that’s amazing. I wanted to see it,” she said.
The album, her third fulllength project, came five years after she released “The Electric Lady” and is another critical effort in the multiple Grammy nominee’s catalog. Monae sings about liberation, oppression, love and more in what is clearly her most honest, sensual album-to-date.