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A few weeks back I wrote about Janell Monaé, an up-and-coming soul artist from Atlanta. She had just released her debut EP, Metropolis: The Chase Suite, to rave reviews and was courted by the Purple One himself, after a recent show at the Viper Room in LA.
After listening to the album a bit more (who am I kidding, I haven’t taken it out of the CD player in my car since I bought it), I want to share one song in particular. I’ll preface by saying, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been genuinely excited about a new soul/r&b artist. So much of it is either boring, unoriginal or the person singing is lacking true vocal chops. Monaé though, her music is enthralling, her stage presence magnificent and her lyrics drenched in socio-political consciousness (I loves me some thinking music).
To wit, “Sincerely Jane” is perhaps one of the most jarring social commentaries on the EP. What I love is that although the album is cloaked in a futuristic concept, the message is acutely poignant. The city (“Metropolis”) has begun degenerating into lawlessness and the rogue android receives a letter from her mother warning her not to come back home.
Left the city, my momma she said don’t come back home
These kids round’ killin each other, they lost they minds, they gone
They quittin’ school, making babies and can barely read
Some gone off to their fall, lord have mercy on them
One, two, three, four, your cousins is round’ here sellin’ dope
While they’re daddies, your uncle is walking round’ strung out
Babies with babies, and their tears keep burning,
while their dreams go down the drain now
The stamping of horns and rolling percussion combined with Monae’s raw, emotive delivery makes the bleak picture all that much more hopeless. There is no effort to sugar coat the very real ugliness of the city as she laments the horrors she’s seen and almost begs for people to wake up:
I’ve seen them shootin’ up funerals in they Sunday clothes
Spending money on spinners but won’t pay college loans
And all you gangers and bangers rollin’ dice and taking lives, in a smokey dark
Lord have mercy on you
Teacher, teacher please reach those girls in them videos
The little girls just broken Queen, confusing bling for soul
Danger, there’s danger when you take off your clothes, all your dreams go down the drain girl
Are we really living or just walking dead now?
Or dreaming of a hope riding the wings of angels
The way we live
The way we die
What a tragedy, I’m so terrified
Day dreamers please wake up, we can’t sleep no more
Anyone who has grown up in the inner city, can relate to the exasperated desire to shake people out of an impoverished mind-state, when the system is set up to keep them oppressed.
Check out this live performance of “Sincerely Jane,” I’m sure you’ll agree, Jonelle Monaé is a natural born star.
