David Remnick (2:09)

Who were the writers and even performers or songwriters that were just inflaming your imagination when you were that young?

Janelle Monae (2:16)

When I was young, I was really influenced because I was with my family. If you grew up in a big family like me, I have over 50 first cousins. My grandmother had. My grandmother had 12 children.

David Remnick (2:27)

Wow.

Janelle Monae (2:29)

And I have a huge family, and so I was just with them a lot. And I come from a musically inclined family. My great grandmothers both played organ and piano at their churches. The church was a huge inspiration for me growing up.

David Remnick (2:41)

Did you sing in church in the way that singers that from an earlier generation did. The way Aretha kind of grew up knowing the music of Sunday morning and Saturday night.

Janelle Monae (2:52)

You know, I did sing in church, but it's not the type of song that you would think would be sung in church.

David Remnick (2:59)

It's not traditional gospel.

Janelle Monae (3:00)

No, I actually was that five, six year old kid who would be sitting in the pew and my pastor would be between yelling and sweating and about to get the Holy Ghost, and I would bust out and sing Michael Jackson's Beat it and then I'd be escorted out to the children's church.

David Remnick (3:16)

You kind of got kicked out?

Janelle Monae (3:18)

Yeah, I was a rebellious Christian.

David Remnick (3:21)

Now, you were also interested in musicals and musical theater. And did you have access to that or was it all through records and radio?

Janelle Monae (3:29)

I did have access to musical theater. And what roles did you play as a kid? I was Cinderella.

David Remnick (3:34)

I can totally believe that.

Janelle Monae (3:35)

We did a production. I went to a predominantly all black high school. Latina, Latino and black high school.

David Remnick (3:43)

You got all the leads, didn't you?

Janelle Monae (3:45)

I didn't, actually. It's funny.

David Remnick (3:47)

When did you not get the lead?

Janelle Monae (3:48)

The whiz? I did not get the whiz. I wanted to be Dorothy so badly.

David Remnick (3:53)

You're still mad about it?

Janelle Monae (3:55)

Kind of. I'm kind of still. But I understood it. But it crushed me growing up. It really crushed me now.

David Remnick (4:01)

At what point did you think I can have a big life? Like something that's beyond being in the High School musical? Something beyond being maybe the best singer at your high school? Something larger than that.

Janelle Monae (4:18)

I don't think it registered until I went to New York Post High School. I went to the American Musical and Dramatics Academy and I started to learn more and I started to grow. And when I realized that there was just more potential that I hadn't tapped into, there was just unaccessed potential that was there. And that led me to leave. I left school because I realized that I wanted to tell fresher stories.

David Remnick (4:46)

Who were your heroes at that time?

Janelle Monae (4:47)

Lauryn Hill. Lauryn Hill was my biggest inspiration, and I love Judy Garland. Lauryn Hill and Judy Garland were my heroes.

David Remnick (4:56)

Those are pretty different performers. Why those two?

Janelle Monae (4:59)

They were just women that I felt really used their voices. They had, first of all, a unique tone and they just came across as strong. I didn't know a whole lot about Judy Garland. Obviously, I'm from Kansas. And the wizard of Oz, you know, and her being in that. I felt like she was a dreamer and she was a strong woman. I know she had a complex life, but Lauryn Hill in particular, resonated with me as a black woman who did an album and made a career fully being herself. She did not shy away from her religious beliefs. She didn't shy away from, you know, being a mom during a time where people said that she could not have a child, it would ruin her career. She. She was an actress, she was an actor, she was a singer, she was a producer, she was a polymath. And that was how I wanted to model my career.

David Remnick (5:50)

Now let's hear a song from an early album that's called Violet Starr's Happy Hunting. And this is from an album called Metropolis, the Chase Suite.

Janelle Monae (singing) (5:58)

I'm an alien from outer space.

Janelle Monae (singing) (6:01)

I'm a cyber girl without a face, a heart or a mind Chase. I'm a guy come to destroy me.

Janelle Monae (singing) (6:19)

Come to destroy me.

Janelle Monae (singing) (6:21)

And I think to myself.

Janelle Monae (6:30)

Oh, my goodness, I haven't heard it in a long time.

David Remnick (6:32)

Now that sounds like something out of a. Out of a musical. Is that what you set out to write?

Janelle Monae (6:37)

Yes. You know what? Well, I wouldn't say a musical. What I wanted to do was figure out how I could sing songs, have concepts for them. If I wanted to talk about science fiction, which was a huge inspiration to me after I watched Fritz Lang's 1927 German Expressionist silent film. When I watched that Metropolis, oh, yes. It inspired all of my work, really. It was the birth of Metropolis, the EP that Violet Stars, Happy Hunting that we just heard. But what I wanted to do was figure out, how do you take. How can I take all of me on stage like I am theatrical? I love singing. I love R and B. I love rock and Rol. I love dressing in this black and white tuxedo to pay homage to my family. I love David Bowie. I had just gotten into Bowie at that time. I love Pink Floyd's the Wall. I love Isaac Asimov. I love science fiction. How can I blend all these different elements and innovate in the space of music?

David Remnick (7:37)

Now, you had in those early days, an alter ego, Cindy Mayweather.

Janelle Monae (7:43)

Why?

David Remnick (7:44)

It's not that you were hiding behind her, but you were projecting this self, which was a complicated thing, which I'll let you explain. Why use her, as it were, instead of being yourself, as you are now in the latest album, Dirty Computer.

Janelle Monae (8:00)

Well, I think that Cindy Mayweather represented aspirations for me. That's who I strive to be more like.

David Remnick (8:09)

How so?

Janelle Monae (8:10)

She is in the future. And in the future, she's more evolved and she doesn't have ego. All the things that make me imperfect. She's Able to master those.

David Remnick (8:23)

So this is a self critical expression by having an alter ego in some way?

Janelle Monae (8:27)

Absolutely.

David Remnick (8:28)

What were you being self critical about in your younger self?

Janelle Monae (8:31)

Well, my younger self, I just felt misunderstood. A lot of people would call me weird. They'd be like, oh, that's not commercial enough. They didn't under. They just did not understand how they were going to market what it was that I was doing. And just what did they want you to be? I don't think it was about wanting me to be something. I think it was really about not wanting to do the work and the development that it would take to figure out how to bring something new to the industry. It was like the quick thing would be, well, you know, change your hair one, change your outfits. You need to sexually be appealing. The songs also, you know, they shouldn't be so dense. They should be more simple and accessible and.

David Remnick (9:19)

But the temptation to fold must have been something financially and in terms of fame and all the things, the rewards that the record industry can buy bring, the temptation to kind of compromise a lot must have been significant.

Janelle Monae (9:33)

Oh, yes. Oh my goodness. Are you kidding me? I had just been fired from Office Depot because I was responding back to one of my three fans that I had at the time. I was singing on the library steps, living in the house with six other girls in a boarding house, you know, driving my Mitsubishi galant, selling my CDs out of my trunk. I needed. I needed money, you know, I needed to be successful.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (9:56)

You were broke?

Janelle Monae (9:57)

Yes, I was broke. I didn't want to go home.

David Remnick (9:59)

What'd you do at Office Depot?

Janelle Monae (10:01)

Selling ink.

David Remnick (10:02)

And you were bad at it?

Janelle Monae (10:03)

Slanging ink. I was. No, no, no. You said, was I bad at it?

David Remnick (10:07)

Yeah.

Janelle Monae (10:07)

No, I'm good at it. Absolutely.

David Remnick (10:09)

So what kind of scrape did you get into?

Janelle Monae (10:11)

Well, I was responding to one of my three fans on the company's computer and I was just trying to tell them, hey, I'll be at the library steps and meet me at 7 o'.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (10:20)

Clock.

Janelle Monae (10:21)

And they were like, janelle, come to the back. And they just made it easier for me. I don't think I would be here right now had I been working there, because I would have kept making excuses.

David Remnick (10:32)

Tell me about the decision to make dirty computer. First, what a dirty computer means has a really rich meaning in the lyrics of these songs, first of all. And second of all, the album is about you. It's no longer a throne character, it's no longer an alter ego. It's about Janelle Monae. It's about identity. It's about oppression. It's about sexuality and marginalization and much else. And you're speaking in your own voice, not the voice of a character.

Janelle Monae (11:02)

Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it. I think we all are characters and we have aspects of us that we allow to be seen. This is a concept and a part of me that I had before I released my first album, the Arch Android. So they're all connected. All the albums are connected. This is sort of a prelude. I wrote the Dirty Computer album in the Obama era, and then things shifted in November of 2016 before then.

David Remnick (11:34)

But you're writing the album in the Obama era with what kind of head? Meaning? How was the Obama era influencing what you're doing?

Janelle Monae (11:41)

Oh, I was inspired. I was inspired by seeing, you know, not just our first African American president, but someone who genuinely cared about the people that I cared about.

David Remnick (11:54)

How deep into the creation of Dirty Computer were you when along came Donald Trump in the election of 2016?

Janelle Monae (12:02)

I was. I was deep. I was probably 70%.

David Remnick (12:07)

Did it interrupt the process?

Janelle Monae (12:09)

It did, absolutely.

David Remnick (12:10)

Did you almost abandon it?

Janelle Monae (12:12)

I took a break because I would go into the studio upset and angry and then it didn't turn into this just album that was Janelle Monae. Centered community kept coming up and it was like, we need to build a community. Because right now the people that I care about and the things that I care about are being erased through laws, through media. And I want to create this project and a tour experience that allows all the dirty computers in the world, those who are told because they're unique or.

David Remnick (12:54)

They'Re dirty computers mean non conformist in some way or not. Well, you explain it well.

Janelle Monae (13:00)

A dirty computer is someone who is told their bugs and their viruses are negatives. And a dirty computer sees themselves or sees those bugs and viruses as attributes, as features. And this project is about the erasure of identity and what it means to hold onto your identity despite what the world says about you and how. I mean, we have a vice president that is talking about conversion therapy. You know, we have so called fixing the computer. Yeah, we have outright just racist, sexist remarks around women and black folks, immigrants to those in the LGBTQIA community, to lower class citizens, to just like my parents and my grandparents would be considered a dirty computer.

David Remnick (13:53)

Let's listen to a song from the new album called Make Me Feel.

Janelle Monae (singing) (13:56)

Baby, don't make me spell it out for you. All of the feelings that I got for you can't be explained But I can try for you yeah, Baby, don't make me spell it out for you. You keep on asking me the same questions why? And second guessing all my intentions should know by the way I use my compression. Did you get the answers to my confessions? It's like I'm powerful with a little bit of tender Mess me up, yeah, but no one does it better. There's nothing better. That's just the way you make me feel. That's just the way you make me feel.

David Remnick (14:53)

Now this song is, if I'm reading it right, is all about sexuality. The first line is, baby, don't make me spell it out for you. Were you getting pretty sick and tired of having to spell it out for people, meaning your own sexuality?

Janelle Monae (15:07)

Well, I felt like I did. I mean, if people listen to my projects, you know, I have. I have songs that never shied away from talking about sexuality. I think that I am a private person, and I do not. And I still to this day, don't like talking about my personal relationships. But I think this was after. After the election. And just as I was working on this project, I knew that once people saw Dirty Computer, the emotion picture, the short film that I did, and they listened to the album, I knew people would ask questions. And at that point, it was just like, you know, it felt right.

David Remnick (15:44)

I saw you perform at Madison Square Garden at the Hulu Theater. When you look out into that audience, what are you looking out into? Who are those people? Who are your people? Who's your audience?

Janelle Monae (16:01)

So I would say that I had to remind myself that when I take off my makeup, when I take off my tour outfit, the truth is, I am a young black queer woman who grew up to working class parents and a grandmother who served food in the county jail for 25 years. That is my life. And when I look out, I see people that every single day are told that they don't matter. And that feels like a direct attack on the people that I love and that I care about. There's a sense of responsibility that I feel and an observation that I. That I feel like I have.

David Remnick (16:45)

Is there a sense of guilt, too?

Janelle Monae (singing) (16:48)

Yeah.

Janelle Monae (16:49)

You know, I feel like, man, why. Why are they having to, you know, go through.

David Remnick (16:59)

Hell?

Janelle Monae (17:00)

Yeah, well, yeah, I feel. I feel a sense of guilt because I'm like, man, I have a voice like, I'm voicing my frustrations. Some people can't. They'll be fired from their jobs, you know, they'll be ostracized from their communities. Yeah, it makes me want to do more and give more.

David Remnick (17:20)

We're going to hear the song Django Jane. And before we do, I'd love to know who this song was written for.

Janelle Monae (17:27)

Django Jane was written for me. For women. It's a response to feeling like your rights as a woman are being trampled.

Janelle Monae (singing) (17:37)

On, running out of space I'm a damn bandwagon Remember when they used to say I look too manish Black girl magic y' all can't stand it y' all can't band it made out like a bandit They've been trying hard just to make us all vanish I suggest they put a flag on a whole nother planet Jane Bond never Jane Doe and I Jane go never Sambo black and white yet it's always been my camo it's looking like y' all gonna need some more ammo I cut them off, I cut them off I cut them off Like Van Gogh now paying right for the angle I got away with murder no scandal cuter violins and violas we gave you life we gave you birth we gave you God we gave you Earth we filmed the future.

David Remnick (18:18)

So we've met once before Much more memorable for me than for you. But there was, not long before Trump took office, a huge gathering at the White House, mainly not for press. There were some reporters there, but there were a lot of performers, athletes, people in the business world gathered at the White House. The DJ for this, I should say, was Questlove.

Janelle Monae (18:44)

Yes.

David Remnick (18:45)

Solange performed. A lot of people performed. And at one point, you started dancing. I forget who was. You were dancing with somebody for about a half an hour. People gathered around you, and you came off. I would have been dead. You seemed to be a little bit tired. And I asked you, aren't you exhausted? And you said, I'm not exhausted because I know I ain't gonna be invited back here for a very, very long time. Can you describe that night, what your memories of it were?

Janelle Monae (19:18)

Oh, my goodness. I just remember a lot of celebration, but sadness under that celebration. And just to think like, man, all the hard work that he had done and was going to be unraveled and undone and control Z deleted. I do remember saying that to you. But what I will say is I want to focus on now. And right now I'm working with an organization when we all vote to help get awareness out. After studying the 2012 election and this past 2016 election, there was a 7% decrease in the black vote. Imagine if we would have showed up. What could have happened?

David Remnick (20:06)

Janelle, thank you so much.

Janelle Monae (20:07)

Janelle Monaque, thank you for having Me.

David Remnick (20:12)

Dirty Computer is the title of Janelle Monae's most recent album. You're listening to the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come.

Janelle Monae (singing) (20:20)

Pink like the inside of your baby Pink behind all of the doors Crazy Pink like the tongue that goes down maybe pink.

David Remnick (20:43)

David Remnik, I'm David Remnick and thanks for joining us on the New Yorker Radio Hour. In the late 80s, I got a job in the Moscow bureau of the Washington Post. So I had to set out to learn Russian. And it was really difficult. And I was pretty damn proud of myself, even acquiring a rudimentary grasp of the language, because unless you grow up with a language, it's hard for at least most of us to learn a new one. Unless you're somebody like Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha, who's what we call a hyper polyglot.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (21:13)

Let me say something in Shawi to my Shawi friends.

David Remnick (21:21)

Shawi is a language that your high school probably didn't offer. It's spoken by about 20,000 people, mostly in the Amazonian rainforest.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (21:28)

I'm in love with Shaoi because, well, it's. I have lived many experiences with the Shaoi. I had problems there. They helped me when I almost died three years ago in an accident. But I'm polyamorous in terms of languages, and Shawi is my wife or husband.

David Remnick (21:49)

Shawi isn't Luis Miguel's first language either. It's not his second or his third. He doesn't even know how many he speaks. 20 something.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (21:57)

I speak some 13, 14 languages fluently. And the others. There are some that I. I know the grandma that I can. I can have some basic conversations. Judith says I have 28. Right.

Janelle Monae (22:15)

Well, you.

Judith Thurman (22:15)

If the fact checker ran this past you, don't look at me.

David Remnick (22:18)

Mandarin, Farsi, Portuguese, Esperanto, ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, the list goes on. Judith Thurman wrote about him in the New Yorker because she's fascinated by these hyper polyglots, people who seem to have no limit to how many languages they can absorb. And when Luis Miguel made his first trip to New York recently, Judith took him out to Queens where he could practice at least a few of his favorites.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (22:44)

This is my advice, but it's very personal. It's just an opinion. If you want to learn a language from a school, that doesn't happen. You have to learn a language on the street, talk to people.

Judith Thurman (22:58)

But not everybody has your guts. I think that it's true. In order to be, you have to be very extroverted. You have to have a sense of Shamelessness, you know, just to go and talk to people on the street. And I think there's an inhibition, shyness, inhibition, timidity. Especially when you don't speak the language, that which you don't have. You are sort of remarkably free, but.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (23:20)

You have to get rid of it, of that inhibition if you want to speak a language. Because languages emerge in interaction. Language is something very personal. And when you just approach someone and ask, hey, do you speak this language? Would you like to teach me some words? It's weird that happened to us, actually, in Malta.

Judith Thurman (23:42)

They couldn't figure out a. What we were doing together and what we were there for. And we wanted to them to talk to us.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (23:50)

And people thought that we were more than just two friends wandering around Malta learning Maltese. One of them said, please stop. Stop flirting and go to the point. Well, this is the point. I'm looking for a tea I love that comes from Taiwan, from the Ali mountains. My Ali shanti got lost because my back is still missing. It's maybe that's why my back got lost. There was a crazy Taiwanese that stole my back because it was full of Ali cha.

Judith Thurman (24:40)

And you learned Chinese adolescent as a teenager?

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (24:43)

Yeah, I was 13, 14 when I started learning Chinese out of a challenge because my dad said that I was spending. I was wasting too much time learning French because he wanted me to be a businessman. So he said, china will be the economic power in the future, so you have to learn Chinese. Said, okay, let's go together. I said, after two months, he failed and surrendered. And I continued and I fell in love with Chinese. I'm getting hungry, so.

Judith Thurman (25:21)

Go upstairs here.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (25:24)

Can you read the button? Yeah. Paiu restaurant. Are they Tibetan? Yeah. Okay, then we will explore the Tibetan numerals, which are really interesting.

Janelle Monae (25:36)

What?

Judith Thurman (25:36)

What's interesting about that?

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (25:37)

We'll see then.

Restaurant Worker (25:38)

Okay, so you want the beef tongue, plain latte, vegetable. Laughing and.

Judith Thurman (25:49)

Right.

Janelle Monae (25:49)

Yes.

Restaurant Worker (25:50)

Spicy soup.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (25:51)

Right.

Judith Thurman (25:57)

Can we ask you for just a little favor? He's a linguist. Would you tell him the numbers in Tibetan?

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (26:03)

The numbers.

Restaurant Worker (26:03)

Numbers.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (26:05)

How do you say one in Tibetan? 2, 3, 4. She. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The beautiful thing is that you see in Tibetan, if you have. If you compare the number with Chinese number, they're almost the same. It's like in Japan, Japanese, like ancient Chinese, ichini san, you know, almost the same.

Restaurant Worker (27:00)

In the Tibet, you know, there's a lot of Chinese, you know, because of that I can understand also. I've been in India, so I lived there for three years, so. So are you Chinese?

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (27:11)

I am from the world. You never know a language. Languages are ideals, unattainable ideals. Every time, even if I'm in a Spanish speaking barrio, there are people speaking ways I haven't heard before. Every time I go back to Peru, I know I'm Peruvian, I have friends there. But my Spanish has changed a bit. I don't have the brand new slang I speak. Speak like 10 years ago. I feel like a foreigner everywhere. And I think that's a bit of an advantage if you want to learn a language, to have a bit of distance. Peruanos, los paisanos in portadores de productos, typicos, equatorianos, mexicanos, peronos colombianos and troamericanos. And the flag of my country is also there. Twice even. Can we go and have a look? There's no air conditioning. Looking for something I used to drink when I was. Oh yes, what's that? Inca.

Janelle Monae (28:43)

Inca Cola.

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha (28:45)

Inca Cola is the. The Peruvian soft drink. Most foreigners dislike it. They say it tastes like chewing gum and I would say it does. Oh, sorry, I'm speaking Spanish. You see, I forget.

David Remnick (29:24)

Luis Miguel Rojas Bercha, a linguist who speaks a couple of dozen languages in Queens. With staff writer Judith Thurman. I'm David Remnick and that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. Next week, please join us for Andy Borowitz and Harry Shearer in character as Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap. A match made in heaven. See you then.

Announcer (29:47)

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Baron, Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frehlman, Kalalea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix and Steven Valentino, with help from Emily Mann, Richard Yeh and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.