Janelle Monáe Robinson (born December 1, 1985) is a singer, rapper, and actress from the United States. She has received a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Children’s and Family Emmy Award, and has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. Monáe has also received the ASCAP Vanguard Award, the Billboard Women in Music Emerging Star Award (2015), and the Trailblazer of the Year Award (2018). The Boston City Council designated October 16, 2013, as “Janelle Monáe Day” in honor of her artistic and activist efforts. She has contracts with Atlantic Records as well as her own label, the Wondaland Arts Society.
Monáe’s musical career began in 2003 when she released The Audition, a demo CD. Monáe made her public debut in 2007 with a conceptual EP titled Metropolis: Suite I. (The Chase). It landed at number two on the US Top Heatseekers list, and in 2010, Monáe released The ArchAndroid, a concept album and sequel to her first EP, through Bad Boy Records. Monáe appeared as a guest vocalist on funsingle .’s “We Are Young,” which was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2011, topping the charts in more than ten countries and introducing Monáe to a broader audience. The Electric Lady (2013), Monáe’s second studio album, premiered at number five on the Billboard 200 and served as the fourth and fifth chapters in the seven-part Metropolis concept series.
Monáe has also dabbled in acting, receiving notoriety for her roles in the 2016 films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. She was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as engineer Mary Jackson in the latter. Since then, she has been in the films Harriet (2019) and Glass Onion (2022), as well as the television series Homecoming (2020). In 2023 the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards honored Monáe with the #SeeHer Award for her “characters played genuinely, escaping clichés and challenging boundaries, and those who stand up for gender equality”.
