Janelle Monáe is here to stay
Blown away by a legend in the making
Creator of “ArchAndroid”, the 2010 R&B reinventing masterpiece soon to be omnipresent in all the end of year top albums lists Janelle Monáe has been much hyped since her destruction of SXSW 2009. Destruction indeed was what the 2000-strong audience witnessed at the Shepherd Bush Empire.
Accompanied by a super-fly, vibrating and incredibly talented entourage of dancers, exquisite bass and keyboard players, an exceptionally stylish drummer and trumpeteers and a hell-raising Master of Ceremony, her majesty the 1st Lady of Coolness began the night with the high tempo explosion of ‘Dance or Die’ and ‘Faster’ played back to back without a single breath-catching stop.
A diva-like cover of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’ followed, leaving us with that astonished expression you only make when you see a future legend performing in front of you. Janelle then decided to keep impressing the hangover-defying public with the surreal ‘Thriller’-tribute that was ‘Wondaland’ and showed how versatile she by painting on canvas while outstandingly interpreting ‘Make The Bus’.
And then, as if the previous hour was not enough to have us on our knees praising Monáe’s geniality, the Big Boi’s protégé melted her two most powerful songs, ‘Cold War’ and ‘Tightrope’, into one hot, crazy finale and wrapped it with a jaw-dropping one-footed sideways moonwalk.
An encore composed by a nice tribute to The Beatles ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and a performance of ’Come Alive’ that screamed “Watch me! I’ll be back, and even bigger!” finished what, for me, was a perfect musical year. Let’s hope 2011 is just as good, if not better.
