{blackbabes} Janelle Monáe: Being unique may make others uncomfortable

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NEW ORLEANS — Janelle Monáe has worked her way up through the ranks at Essence Music Festival, which celebrates 20 years this weekend. She has played the festival's "superlounges" tucked away in corners of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, and last year she graduated to the main stage. She'll be part of tonight's main stage lineup as well, along with Nile Rodgers of Chic and Prince.

"I'm so excited to play on stage with (Prince)," she says. "He's the reason I'm here."

The choice seems obvious. Like Prince, Monáe's funk is eclectic and draws as much from R&B tradition as it does from '70s glam rock. She also formed the Wondaland Arts Society, a Paisley Park-like collection of groups and creative people associated with her band, and last year, Monáe curated a night of performances by those bands in the CoverGirl Superlounge at Essence.

"Prince has been a huge inspiration for independent artists everywhere," Monáe says. "We look to Prince and what he's done over the years to expose new talent as inspiration for us and fuel, absolutely."

Like the magazine the festival is named for, Essence is geared to the self-defined woman, and Monáe's musical story is exactly that. On her records, she tells a science-fiction story of an African-American android in the future, singing as the android. On 2013 single Q.U.E.E.N., she declares, "Categorize me, I defy every label," and that ambiguity extends to her life offstage.

"When I started wearing tuxedos, people assumed that I was gay," she says. "I think that's ridiculous. We come in so many different packages as a woman. There's no one way to communicate strength. There's power in wearing dresses and there's power in wearing pants. It's important to be unique, even if it makes others uncomfortable."

CoverGirl made her part of its #GirlsCan initiative to draw attention to the world of possibilities for women, along with Sofia Vergara, Katy Perry, Queen Latifah, Ellen DeGeneres and others. "Girls can own their own recording labels," Monáe said. "Girls can wear tuxedos and black and white every single day. Girls can redefine what it means to be a woman making music in the fashion world."

Prince has been supportive of Monáe and made a rare guest spot on someone else's album when he sang on Give 'Em What They Love on The Electric Lady. The two have toured together, and he surprised her onstage during her recreation of James Brown's cape routine. In it, Monáe collapses exhausted (as Brown did) and is wrapped in a cape and nearly escorted offstage before she throws it off and returns, energized, to the microphone At one show in Denmark, Prince draped the cape over her.

"I didn't even know he was on stage," she says. "The audience saw him do it. I was so embarrassed; he thought it was so funny."

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