Janelle Monáe Robinson ( jə-NEL moh-NAY; born December 1, 1985) is an American singer, songwriter, rapper and actress. She has received ten Grammy Award nominations, and won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Children’s and Family Emmy Award. Monáe has also been honored with the ASCAP Vanguard Award, as well as the Rising Star Award (2015) and the Trailblazer of the Year Award (2018) from Billboard Women in Music.Monáe began her musical career in 2003 with the release of her demo album, The Audition. She signed with Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy Records to release her debut extended play (EP), Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) (2007). It received critical acclaim and narrowly entered the Billboard 200; she followed up with her debut studio album and the EP’s sequel, The ArchAndroid (2010), a concept album and her first release through Atlantic Records. The following year, she guest performed on fun.’s 2011 single “We Are Young,” which received diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and peaked the Billboard Hot 100 as well as ten other countries. Monáe’s second studio album, The Electric Lady (2013) debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and served as the fourth and fifth installments of her seven-part Metropolis concept series.Monáe’s third studio album, Dirty Computer (2018)—also a concept album—was released to widespread critical acclaim; it was chosen as the best album of the year by several publications and received two nominations at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. The album peaked within the top ten of the Billboard 200 and was further promoted by Monae’s Dirty Computer Tour. It was accompanied by the science fiction film of the same name. In 2022, she wrote the cyberpunk story collection, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, based on the album. Her fourth studio album, The Age of Pleasure, followed in 2023.
Monáe has also ventured into acting, first gaining attention for starring in the 2016 films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. For portraying engineer Mary Jackson in the latter, she was nominated for the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has since starred in the films Harriet (2019) and Glass Onion (2022), and the television series Homecoming (2020). In 2022, she won her first Children’s and Family Emmy Awards for Outstanding Short Form Program for her role in the TV series We the People. She launched her record label, Wondaland Arts Society in a joint venture with Epic Records in 2015, and has signed artists including Jidenna, Roman GianArthur and St. Beauty.
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