One of Janelle Monáe’s earliest childhood memories is of being hugged by her grandmother, a former sharecropper from Mississippi, and listening to her stories from the past: her years as a cotton picker; how their family came to be in Kansas City; the importance of connection to others. It was there, in her grandma’s arms, that a slip of a six-year-old girl decided that one day she would become a storyteller, too. She wrote precocious plays and poems, sang and entered talent competitions that she often won, and gave her mother the winnings to help towards the electricity bill.
Twenty five years later, and Monáe’s an acclaimed musician, record label boss and activist who is about to make her acting debut. “I’ve never viewed myself as ‘just’ a musician or singer,” she says. “I’m a storyteller who wants to tell untold, meaningful, universal stories in unforgettable ways. I want to do it all, study it all and find my place in it.”
Her first role provides a great opportunity for telling an unforgettable story. Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight is the coming-of-age tale of Chiron, an African American boy dealing with his sexuality. It’s based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by award-winning writer Tarell Alvin McCraney and is all but certain of Oscar nominations when they’re announced on Tuesday. Monáe plays Teresa and she and her drug dealer boyfriend Juan become surrogate parents to little Chiron. Monáe calls it her “Neo from The Matrix moment,” explaining that this film, and her recent move into acting, has always been her destiny, that she doesn’t believe in coincidence: “Things don’t just happen,” she says. “It’s all connected.”
It’s odd to hear her say this, as in person Monáe doesn’t feel very connected. When we meet she wears huge, round mirrored shades which obscure her face and stay firmly on throughout our interview, reflecting my own face back at me twice over. She sits neatly at the table, her legs curled beneath her. She’s courteous and friendly and businesslike. She chooses her words carefully.
“I had a strong visceral reaction to the Moonlight script, partly because I felt I knew all of these characters,” she says. “I grew up with a drug dealer like Juan in my neighbourhood who was a mentor to local young people. I had a family member who was addicted to crack, like Paula [Chiron’s biological mother, played by Naomie Harris]. Chiron himself reminded me of my little cousin – they were all characters I could relate to from my upbringing. And I’ve played the role of Teresa in real life: my family and friends always have a shoulder to lean on with me,” she says.
About 40 minutes into Moonlight, Chiron, sitting at Teresa and Juan’s table, asks what a faggot is and whether he is one. There’s no music in this scene; Juan doesn’t grab a gun and try to blow anyone away. Instead, he gracefully picks the word apart. It’s an unexpected reaction.
“The misconception is that drug dealers are all monolithic,” says Monáe, “that what you see on TV is how they are in real life. The dealers I knew growing up were hustling and making choices they may not be proud of, but they were also giving back to the community, mentoring young boys and girls, helping people to pay their bills. They can be surrogate mothers and fathers to people in their communities, just like in Moonlight.”
Monáe grew up in Kansas City with her mother, a janitor, her truck driver stepfather and a sister. Money was tight but her large, devoutly Christian family – she has more than 50 first cousins – were close. “My grandmother had 11 children and although we didn’t have a whole lot of money, what we did have was a lot of love,” she says. “My grandmother was the matriarch. If you didn’t have a place to stay, if you needed food, if you were just coming out of jail or rehab, you went to her. Watching her in our family and our wider community was what inspired me and still does.”
Life was tough. “There was a lot of nonsense growing up so I reacted by creating my own world,” she says. The arts – local theatre groups, singing and drama classes – gave Monáe the drive and focus to finish high school and temporarily work alongside her mother as a maid to save enough money to study at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York.
She then moved to Atlanta, Georgia, after she finished her studies. She’d update her MySpace profile while working at Office Depot to make ends meet, and came to the attention of fellow Atlantan Big Boi of Outkast. They became collaborators and, in 2006, he introduced her to Sean “Diddy” Combs, who offered her a recording contract. Monáe was initially wary of signing her creative control away, but took the chance and it paid off. “Diddy was hands off and wanted me to do my thing. That’s why he’d offered to sign me in the first place, because I was different and I was the whole package.”
For Monáe, at 31, with three albums and six Grammy award nominations under her belt, her own record label up and running and two film roles in the pipeline (she also co-stars in the film Hidden Figures, the true story of the African American female mathematicians who helped catapult US astronaut John Glenn into space in the 1960s), 2016 was a year of professional triumphs but personal heartache. She had spent the early part of the year working on new music with her close friend and collaborator, Prince. “He was actually helping me with my new music during the time before he transitioned. I was lucky enough to see his last show and tell him how much I loved him. He was a giver – people don’t know that. He gave so much: advice, very quiet donations to charities. He was a truly incredible soul.”
Still mourning for Prince, Monáe was grief-struck a second time last year when, in August, her cousin was killed in a drive-by shooting. The 37-year-old was shot several times when the gunman sprayed bullets into the Kansas City home where she and her three children were sleeping. The gunman remains free. Monáe, a long-time advocate of tighter gun control and an active voice in the Black Lives Matter movement pauses, and says quietly: “My family is heartbroken and I’m still devastated. My cousin was an innocent mother of three children. How? How can this be real life?” She continues: “We have to do something about gun laws. And we also have to do something about police brutality towards African American people.” She points out that they are two different issues, but that “we need more allies. People need to continue to speak out about the way African American people are being treated. An injustice to one black man or woman is an injustice to everybody.”
Monáe has led marches for Black Lives Matter, performed at a concert in aid of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, alongside Stevie Wonder last year, and released a protest song, “Hell You Talmbout”, in October in response to the police brutality. Unsurprisingly, she is no fan of Donald Trump. “Millennials will not be silenced – we’re the powerhouse now. We’re not going to let those who want to ‘make America great again’ truly take over. Because what Trump means by ‘making America great again’ is oppressing women, oppressing minorities, creating hate. We’re not allowing him to run the world, even though he thinks he is.”
I ask her how she feels she can make a difference personally. Monáe takes a deep, considered breath and says calmly: “Music is my weapon. I won’t remain silent. Michelle Obama – having been our First Lady for eight years – set an example of how we need to be. We need to be visible and we need to be loud. We’re not objects.” For the first time during the interview, Monáe shows more than a crack of emotion – not much – but enough to know that the sunglasses stay on for a reason.
Moonlight opens in the UK on 17 February
