Janelle Monae Concert Recap: 'The Age Of Pleasure' Tour
A Dirty Computer Enters The Age of Pleasure
Janelle Monáe’s performance at The Midland on Saturday is still inescapably at the top of mind. For myself and a clamorous sold-out cadre of fans, friends and family – including the artist’s 96-year-old great-grandmother – there were myriad reasons to celebrate.
But the main impetus boils down to much more than that voracious hometown crowd, more than a meticulously crafted stage show divided into multiple chapters and rapid-fire costume/set changes, even more than the next-level band and crew. In this writer’s opinion, it was precisely the oasis and safe space Monáe envisioned for their return home to Kansas City after a half-decade.
With a nearly two-hour, 20-song set, Monáe (whose pronouns are she/they) showed the hometown crowd what it means to gather in the name of pleasure. If you were there, you may have enjoyed these songs purely under the guise of ecstasy and joy, which is reason enough to attend any live show. But if you’ve followed her Wyandotte County heritage and the renowned career that would sprout from it, you may also appreciate the evolution it took for that joy to circle back, at the place where it all began.
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Monáe is a world-building artist who creates utopian spaces, open to those of us who have felt left on the sidelines. In previous works, she constructed these landscapes through Afrofuturistic sci-fi themes, conceptualizing sanctuaries where the disenfranchised would thrive. Until now, she assumed two cyborg identities – “The ArchAndroid” Cindi Mayweather and Jane 57821, the “Dirty Computer.”
Her new album, “The Age Of Pleasure,” feels like more of a palpable reality for Monáe – a universe beaming with sounds of the Pan African diaspora, from Jamaican dancehall to New York ballroom and reggae.
“Basically, what you guys are witnessing is lifestyle,” she told me in a recent Bridge interview. “This is a soundtrack to a lifestyle that we lived, and we've been very fortunate to be able to have.”
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But for Monáe, it’s not simply good fortune that ushered in her age of pleasure – which took shape during weekend parties at her Los Angeles home, yielding writing and recording sessions in the days that followed. It’s also artistic innovation, being surrounded by a like-minded community, and using art to incite change and move people, which is exactly what took place on Saturday night.
Materializing from a plume of smoke amidst a triumphant horn section and a remarkable rock band, Monáe “floated” into the first five tracks of the album and sent the entire room ablaze with a euphoria that never let up, even after we shuffled out of the auditorium.
Of course, she offered a few selections from the Grammy-nominated 2018 album, “Dirty Computer,” which saw the creation of Jane 57821 – a queer Black android whose memory is wiped by the totalitarian society they inhabit. There was the ebullient “Django Jane” (featuring a triumphant KC name drop), the pulsating “Pynk,” the liberating “I Like That,” and “Make Me Feel,” in which the artist channeled Michael Jackson, James Brown and Prince in one fell swoop. Also, two rhapsodic singles from 2013’s “The Electric Lady” – the title track and “Q.U.E.E.N.,” which features a line about freeing Kansas City.
Perhaps the most poignant moments of the night arrived toward the end. After the show-stopping performance of “Make Me Feel,” Monáe gave a tear-filled speech about their early support system, rooted in KCK’s Quindaro neighborhood. She made it clear that her trajectory would have been impossible without the foundation of her grandmothers, parents, aunties, the many connections she made before heading to a dramatic arts academy in New York and eventually settling in Atlanta, where she would form her own community of creators in Wondaland Arts Society — which fosters artists like Jidenna, who supported her that evening.
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Then, she explained the impetus behind the new album: “The Age Of Pleasure is about unapologetically celebrating life. Free! Free from people who don’t appreciate our beauty. Free from racism, sexism, transphobia, Islamophobia, and everything that seeks to divide us,” she exhorted. “We will have to vote out the politicians who do not support us. We deserve human rights, we deserve to feel safe, and that’s what this was about. A safe oasis for us. Free from that. I love you so much, and I will continue to keep fighting.”
And with that, Monáe tipped on the “Tightrope,” the 2010 breakout hit from her debut LP “The ArchAndroid.” The evening concluded with “Come Alive (The War of the Roses),” another single from that album, where Cindi Mayweather begins to question her burgeoning conflict with the Metropolis society – a futuristic city that is, in part, based on her KCK upbringing.
It was a beautiful bookend to a delightful evening, showing us how art can facilitate transformation of oneself and one’s surroundings. It was a reminder to live in the present, and in Janelle Monáe’s own words, to “radically love ourselves out loud.” I couldn’t imagine wanting to live in any other world.
Set List
- Float
- Champagne Sh*t
- Black Sugar Beach
- Phenomenal
- Haute
- Django Jane
- Q.U.E.E.N.
- Electric Lady
- Lipstick Lover
- Water Slide
- Know Better
- Paid in Pleasure
- Screwed (clip)
- Pynk
- Yoga ft. Jidenna
- Only Have Eyes 42
- I Like That
Encore:
Make Me Feel
Tightrope
Come Alive (The War of the Roses)
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