In the interview on living free as a queer African-American woman, Janelle mentions how she dealt with her frustration using a piece of advice Stevie Wonder gave her when she was dealing with anger which affected her ability to create.
“I will say that after this election, I dealt with a lot of anger. I dealt with a lot of frustrations, like many of us, when it came to the nonleader of the free world and that particular regime.
“I felt it was a direct attack on us, on black women, on women, on women’s rights, on the LGBTQIA community, on poor folks. I felt like it was a direct attack saying, ‘You’re not important. You’re not valuable and we’re going to make laws and regulations that make it official and make it legal for us to devalue you and treat you like second-class citizens or worse.’ I got to the point where I stopped recording because I was just like, ‘I’m going to make an angry album.”
Monáe mentioned 2 things that helped her deal with her anger: The first was therapy and the second, a bit of advice from Stevie Wonder. According to the singer, she was able to unpack a lot of emotional weight and affirm the validity of her feelings in therapy.
Then there was a dinner with Stevie Wonder, the music giant asked her to pull out her phone and record what he said next after listening to Janelle’s feelings and frustrations.
He says: “Even when you’re upset, use words of love – cause God is love, Allah is love, Jehovah is love. So don’t let your expressions, even of anger be confused or misconstrued. Turn them into words of expression, that can be understood by using words of love”
The recording later became an interlude called Stevie’s Dream on her third studio album, Dirty Computer, released on April 27, 2018.
Click here to read the full interview
21 thoughts on “Janelle Monáe covers Allure’s freedom issue this July”