The most creative, frenetic, insane, imaginative, beautiful, genius video I think I've ever seen.
I think she just became my favourite artist today off the back of it. At the very least, she replaces Erykah Badu as the artist I cannot wait to argue with my crunk-addicted sister over.
If you don't know about Janelle, you need to get to knowing already. A few reasons:
- Barack Obama is a fan...
- ... as are two of my all-time favourite artists: Erykah Badu & Prince
- Personally signed by Diddy to Bad Boy Records: an interesting move for a genuine artist.
- Outkast affiliate, signed at a point by Big Boi, later featuring on Idlewild and in their Morris Brown video.
- Acts too, and based on her creativity and the sheer level of performance she injects into her live sets and videos, I reckon she'll be pretty well known for it one day.
Thanks Amelia for putting me onto this.
Fancy finding you in this corner of the bloggosphere :). Indeed, Ms. Monae is super talented. I was very concerned about the BadBoy affiliation and their history of artist-exploitation but I respect her choice.
ReplyDeleteOh BTW, the guitarist is from her band, the Wondaland Arts Society. I'll start stopping by regularly
Ahhh... and there I was thinking Johnny Vulture had struck again. Trust you to know. Don't tell me you've already seen her in concert!
ReplyDeleteHow do you rate Jill Scott?
ReplyDeleteAlso what of the similarities between this video and some of Outkast's productions?
ReplyDeleteI think Jill Scott is staggeringly talented and a great, antural performer with warmth, intelligence and a sense of humour. BUT I've found that her albums since the first (& maybe the live one) pretty smooth... and as such dull. I personally like more experimentation and less neo in my soul, hence me preferring Erykah and Janelle, who are more adventurous.
ReplyDeleteJanelle is from the Outkast camp (Big Boi is even in the video) so it's okay that the video has a 'Hey Ya' feel to it. Plus it is clever marketing: Outkast is one of the only successful black music acts who don't make typical R&B/hiphop (the other main one is Gnarls Barkley) so tapping into a little of that will help her appeal to people in the same way. And it's working: people are already calling her a female Outkast/Prince.
To me Prince is a musical King.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting on Outkast to tour the UK too!
Jill Scott is a very good poet - I commend and recommend her poetry.
Collaborations was a funktastic album full of amazing collaborations with the likes of the Isley Brothers and Sergio Mendes!!!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UBxelIcEw7M
I LOVE Janelle Monáe! My track this week is Mr President. ALL thanks go to QUÉ? who put me onto this. :D
ReplyDelete