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She’s been mentioned here once or twice before. She was recently written up in a music review in the New York Times after an appearance with Rafael Saadiq at the Highline Ballroom in NY. You may have heard her on the Idlewild soundtrack (“Call the Law,” “In Your Dreams”). But if you don’t know her name or who she is yet, it’s time!

credit: Nastassia A. Davis

Janelle Monae

The best, if lazy, description I can give of Janelle is that she’s like Bjork crossed with Andre 3000. Her EP, Metropolis: The Chase Suite (Special Edition), is a refreshing collection of topical, futuristic, inventive, almost anti-music. I say “anti” because to listen and appreciate it is at once to decry just about everything else being produced today. Janelle proves it is possible to have a message (to little girls: “danger, there’s danger when you take off your clothes/all your dreams go down the drain, girl”), be nervous about our future (“the winds of change seemed they have abandoned us”), be a hopeless (-ly realistic) romantic (“tell me are you bold enough to reach for love”) and be unfailingly musically interesting. She’s got something to say about drugs (“heroin user/coke head/final chapter/death bed), politics (“white house/jim crow”), and the industry (“record deal/light bulb/keep back kid down/corporate thug”).

Aside from the similarity I hear in “Sincerely Jane” to Propellerheads/Shirley Bassey’s “History Repeating,” Janelle is like nothing I have heard before. The blend of ska percussion, urgent synths, twilight zone backdrops, bluesy, big band trumpets and violins is distinctly her own. She calls herself an alien from outerspace and you’ll hear why. And, If I could sum up her message it would be this: “Day dreamers please wake up, we can’t sleep no more.”

Check her out and sample a few tunes on her website.