Janelle Monáe’s latest album Dirty Computer is out today, and so is she.
In a wide-ranging Rolling Stone cover interview, Monáe discusses the fact that she’s had relationships with men and women. She adds that she used to identify as bi, but “then later I read about pansexuality and was like ‘Oh, these are things that I identify with too.’”
She describes herself as “a queer black woman in America” and “a free-ass mother f**ker”.
Pansexuality, speaking very generally and not for anyone specifically, is not the same thing as bisexuality. As an orientation or identity, it acknowledges that there are more than two genders, and speaks to the possibility of sexual and/or emotional connection with people of any gender identity or expression. (Some bisexual people are attracted to women and non-binary folks but not men, for example.)
I am so here for centering & applauding artists like @JanelleMonae. Read her @RollingStone feature & dance around your room like I just did –> https://t.co/HUjBj6zMwo pic.twitter.com/TiStB6uJvr
— Alanna Vagianos (@lannadelgrey) April 26, 2018
Monáe’s always skirted questions about her sexuality (which is, to be fair, nobody else’s business), telling interviewers that she “only dates androids”. She was pretty committed to the whole Metropolis-inspired, Afro-Futurist conceit, adopting and sticking to the complex backstory of her fugitive android alter ego Cindi Mayweather across two and a half albums and in all press interviews.
“I don’t like being mysterious,” she told me apologetically when I interviewed her in 2012. “I just prefer not to speak when the timing isn’t right. Everything is all about timing.”
I was trying to press her for details on when we might get the follow-up to The ArchAndroid, not her personal life – but as the Rolling Stone story makes clear, the android persona, the monochrome “uniforms” and the tightly controlled aesthetic were as much a part of her personal journey as her artistic one.
From the beginning of this album cycle, she’s been hinting that the timing was finally right to own her identity more publicly. We were certainly clued in by the Prince-assisted single ‘Make Me Feel’, which came complete with an extremely hot, extremely queer clip featuring Tessa Thompson.
The clip for third single ‘Pynk’ also featured Thompson and some instantly iconic vagina pants.
Now she also says that there were more hints than most people realised in her earlier songs – the Erykah Badu-featuring ‘Q.U.E.E.N.’, she says, was originally called ‘Q.U.E.E.R.’.
Janelle Monáe dropped a queer anthem in 2013, and we didn't even know it. https://t.co/MHsicsVT97 pic.twitter.com/ucVJloiAEi
— Stacy Lambe (@sllambe) April 26, 2018
She didn’t confirm in the Rolling Stone interview whether the persistent rumours that she’s dating Thompson are true. However, if you feel as strongly as I do about the idea of this pairing being possibly the best thing about the world in 2018, here is a truly stupendous Autostraddle investigation into their public appearances together and/or perceived ladyboners for one another.
For now, we can just enjoy whatever Monáe wants to give us, whenever she feels like it – which will also sometime today include a 45-minute Dirty Computer “emotion picture” for you to enjoy at your leisure, alongside what’s likely to be one of the best albums of the year.