Earlier this week, Janelle Monáe released a teaser video for her upcoming album Dirty Computer, which will also include a film component. Now we’re hearing not one but two of the new songs from that record, “Make Me Feel,” and “Django Jane.”
“Make Me Feel” premiered on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show as today’s World Record, and alongside the first play was an interview with Monáe, who stated that the song was recorded at her studio in Atlanta, Georgia (“We had to keep it, you know, where it was funky,” she noted), and that it “captures the fun that I love having in the studio.” It’s essentially Prince via contemporary pop, paying particular tribute to his iconic single “Kiss,” and it’s hard to not want to immediately press play again as soon as it’s finished. You can hear that above, alongside a delightfully retro music video starring Monáe and Tessa Thompson (who’ll presumably feature more in the Dirty Computer film).
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The second of the two tracks is very different, though this is hardly surprising considering Monáe’s effortless and well-known versatility. On “Django Jane” she raps over a mid-tempo beat, painting vivid images with cascades of confident, rapidly delivered lyrics. The video sees her atop a throne, surrounded by woman dancers, dressed in trouser suits of sumptuous colour, and channeling the same assured greatness we always see from her. Hear that track below.
Both tracks, of course, are fantastic, but when received as a pair they seem to work in tandem, as confirmation that 2018’s is, finally, Janelle Monáe’s for the taking.
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