Janelle Monáe: We Should Thank Our Exes (FBF)

Call Her Daddy

Janelle Monáe discusses her new album 'The Age of Pleasure,' reflecting on her journey from a period of struggle and trauma to embracing self-love and

Key takeaways

• Janelle Monáe's new album 'The Age of Pleasure' is a soundtrack to a lifestyle centered around self-love and joy.
• Monáe had to heal from trauma related to rejection and abandonment, including her relationship with her father.

Main topics

• Healing from trauma and rejection
• The importance of self-love and acceptance

Notable quotes

I had to go back to those times that were painful, that those times that I just had to forgive my dad.

I think it's so fucking uncomfortable. Yeah. But you got to do the work because then you won't be uncomfortable.

Conclusion

Janelle Monáe's episode offers a powerful message of self-acceptance,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with Call Her Daddy. Janelle Monáe, welcome to Call Her Daddy. Thank you so much for having me. I'm, first of all, I'm just so excited to meet you. I'm a huge fan of all your work. I was listening to your music on my way here, and I'm like, okay, you are giving sexual, sensual, fun, party vibes. It gives all the vibes. Your album is amazing. I'm so happy to have you here. Oh, thank you so much for having me, Alex. Of course. I'm a big fan of your. show of your experience rather so I was really happy when I found out we were going to do this so thank you okay tell me how your summer's going you were on vacation where were you let us pretend we were there with you oh please I'm like can we all just go on vacation for the whole summer come on everybody everybody let's do this let's all agree that summers are for vacations paid for by the government. I love this energy. Paid for by the government. We're going to like manifest it here now because it's like when you were younger, I feel like summers were always vacation because off of school. But when you become an adult, nothing is fun anymore. We're like, we need to go on vacation. Okay, so where were you? Okay, so I was in Abisa, Spain. Okay. And then I stayed there for probably like five or six days, which was like an experience. Like it is a party place. So we did not go to sleep. I went with like 10 of my other friends and we didn't go to sleep to like seven in the morning every morning. I can't even say night. Right. But it was so fun. It was that ooh-oh-oh-oh-oh, that och-och music. I kind of like ooch-och, but I need like some hip-hop, some something mixed in with it. But it was so fun. The sunsets are beautiful. And then the second portion the vacay was Jamaica. Oh, I've never been. Ocho Rios. Beautiful people. The food, the chicken patties, the beef patties, the shrimp curry, the plantains. I had at least 152 plantins. What? One by one. Yeah. As you were saying that, I'm like, ooh, I feel like I'm there with you. It was like, it was heaven. So I will say I'm sort of mentally still there. It's okay. We can keep it chill. We're on vacation. This is summer. Like, we're just going to relax today, okay? Let's relax. And it's so interesting that you say, like, as kids growing up, it just reminded me, like, I didn't take vacations as a kid. Okay. I think that's why I'm so adamant about it now. I didn't, you know, my parents worked a lot, and we didn't get the opportunity to go outside of Kansas. So I didn't take my first vacation until really my first album came out. And now you're like, I deserve this. I'm making up for lost time. As you should, that's phenomenal. I feel like when I go on trips with my friends, there's someone in the friend group that's like the planner, that's like the reservation and itineraries, and then there's people that are more like chill and just going with the flow. Who are you in the friend group? Oh, my God. I'm the one actually sending out the group texts. Like dinner, I could be at the club. It could be four in the morning. I'm like lunch is going to be served at 2 p.m. Breakfast for anybody between. nine and noon, dinner's going to be eight. Like, I love making the itineraries. I'm that friend. You're the dream, though. I'm, yeah. And people are like, Janelle, why are you doing? And I just, I don't know. I just love curating experiences. Yeah. I grew up actually throwing parties with my best friends, middle school. Sixth grade, seventh grade. We would rent out this location in one of our friends' neighborhoods, sort of white building and we would charge people a dollar to get in and I would hide in the bathroom because I didn't know who was going to come I had so much anxiety around it and then once it would get packed my friends would come underneath the stall because I locked myself in the bathroom they'd be like it’s not come out come out bitch get out get out get out and so I've just always loved curating experiences for people I mean I think that's a like a great trait and quality to have. Like I feel like that makes a lot of sense of like what I wanted to talk to you about today is obviously your new album, The Age of Pleasure, is out. And I was, while I was listening to it, I'm like, you have such a specific great vibe that's like very infectious, which I love. And I'm curious, like, are you currently in your age of pleasure? Have you always been? Like, and what is age of pleasure to you? Oh, that's a great question. I wasn't always in my age of pleasure. I've been an age of fear, age of anxiety, age of just worry, a fight, you know, fighting back against systems that seek to oppress folks like myself and the people that I love and centering that. And with this album, which I actually don't even call an album, I say that it is a soundtrack to a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. you know, we live this. I wrote this, this project for my friends and for me. And I was just like, if we fuck with it, that's all I care about. So I would throw parties at my house with my friends who own this party collective called Everyday People. And if I knew we were going to be having and hosting them on a Saturday, that Monday or Tuesday, we would go into the studio and we would write like two to three songs that would work in the DJ's playlist. I wouldn't tell anybody it was me. I would not like make a big thing about it and I would be very nervous like oh my god oh my god oh my god are people going to sit down because if people sat down it was not going to go on the album if people were not shazamming it wasn't going on the album and so every song that you hear all of my friends all of the people who were with us celebrating in this safe space they are responsible for the songs making the album that takes a lot of confidence, but also just like self-awareness, to be like, I'm going to play my friends, my songs. They're going to have no fucking idea. It's me. And watch, let's see if they vibe with it. So like every single, because I was thinking, when I was listening to champagne shit, I was like, okay, like, this is a vibe. Like, I would listen to this, like, getting ready with my friends, like getting ready to go out. Like, but then I'm, oh, I'm wondering like, so you're sitting there being like, do they like it? Do they like it? And then you're like, check that's going on the soundtrack. Yep. I'm like, how did people move? Okay. Shit. I saw some people shazimming. And then some people would be like, wait, is this? But I never would confirm. I would go hide and be like, you know, having somebody else tell me what's going on. But yeah, like it's as an artist presenting anything before the world gets it. Like for that first time, I talked a lot of my artist friends and we're all like, it is one of the most like scary things ever, scary feelings to have because it comes from such a pure. place when we create and for not to be accepted you don't know you you know you take it but for me i got i was like i'm ready i'm okay i had to heal some shit you know because because some of that is attached to to just rejection issues abandonment issues like people don't like my stuff that could go down to the root of an issue that you just need to fix and i definitely used um a portion of this pandemic to to sort of work on that and to get to to my own you know traumas that I had to heal and to get to a place to where I was like, wait, I've been really centering fighting so much that I don't even know what my life is like outside of that. Who am I? You know, I like, who am I outside of the fight? You know, who am I? And so I had to sit with myself and ask myself. And, you know, when I think about the word pleasure, there is no pleasure without feeling safe. Yeah. I didn't always feel safe. That's so, I appreciate you sharing that because I, one, can relate in terms of like putting something creatively out there and being extremely nervous to see, obviously, like, are people going to like it? On top of that, obviously, you infusing parts of you with your sexuality and race and growing up and your experiences, like, that's like a really vulnerable moment to be infusing something into a work of art. and then like fingers crossed hoping people like it you kind of have to slowly be really good with yourself to be able to know like sure I can like perfect my craft a little bit more but down to the core like if people don't like it I'm still going to be okay with myself and that must take time though exactly it does it takes a lot of unlearning yeah it takes a lot of um fucking with yourself you know and and like I have to say like you have to be like I fuck with me You know, yeah, okay, somebody doesn't like a song that I made, but that doesn't make me a bad songwriter. Yeah. That doesn't make me a bad artist. That doesn't mean that I should just throw away my whole career, you know. And you have to just understand that sometimes we're not always in the same space that we can take in, you know, take in the message or the energy that an artist is trying to put out. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just like, okay. this didn't resonate with you okay but I don't give you that power over me you're not more powerful your thoughts about my art are not more powerful than my thoughts about my art yeah it's so real what you're saying too because even when I was listening to you say like I was fighting for so much of my life like and when am I going to get out of this stage that's also the beauty of art is like it will come to it when you're ready yeah your music would have sounded so different in your fighting stages verse now when you're like, I fucking love myself. I'm more clear on who I am. I'm more secure in certain things that were like eating me alive. Maybe when I was younger and going through it. And you can tell like this album, like it makes you smile. It makes you feel yourself. It makes you just like want to live. And I don't know if that sounds corny, but like, no, it's facts. No, it's really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. Yeah. Every moment of your soundtrack. felt very thoughtful and put together. And it is a story. So I just, I'm a creative person. So I just want you know, I really respect you. And it's great. Thank you. You know, I wanted to focus on feeling too. You know, I think feeling is what music gives us. It makes us feel. It makes us want to dance. It makes us want to party. It makes us want to cry. It makes us want to feel ourselves and feel sexy, have sex. All those things is such a powerful energy. And the fact that it, a feeling that I had that I felt like, man, this is, this makes me feel good, knowing that that makes you feel and we are just meeting each other. That's such, I think that's such a beautiful exchange. So thank you so much. Of course. It's interesting. You kind of mentioned this earlier and I want to talk about it. I know you've talked about going to therapy and working on yourself. And I know you're at a great place in your life and, you know, the age of pleasure. But let's go back a little bit. What is the biggest part of yourself you had to heal in order to be who you are sitting here today? Oh, wow. You know, one of the things that I had to do was, again, deal with my rejection and abandonment sort of trauma. Where did that start from? You know, my dad and I, who we're like this now, we're super close. but my dad struggled with addiction growing up. And so he was in and out of my life. And so there were just times where I didn't know if he was really gonna come and pick me up. You know, I just, the trust wasn't there. I felt let down. There were, you know, moments that, that happened all the way up into, you know, high school and other things that happened. So I had to go back to those times that were painful, that those times that I just had to forgive my dad. I was like, I have to forgive you. You were struggling with drug addiction. You were not the best version of yourself. And now that you are, we get to make up for that. We get to make up for that time. And as I healed that and I talked to him about it, a lot changed for me. As I forgave him, I forgave my own self for spending so many years, you know, in that dark space and connecting that to my art. you know if if i thought that i had done something wrong you know why wasn't he showing up for me and so when you go and you in the back of your head or thinking that you're doing something wrong that your own dad isn't around if in your art you feel like people are not liking what it is that you're doing or they're judging you or whatever it's so all it's intertwined you know the feeling of like them leaving you like your dad left you you never want to feel that and so i had to get to a place where I was, I understood what that was and I had to let go and I had to be okay with knowing that there's nothing wrong with me if, if folks don't want to come to my party. You know, even me hiding in the bathroom, they don't, they didn't want to come to my party. Okay, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me. My dad, it wasn't nothing wrong with me while my dad wasn't around. He was struggling. He was battling. And people are battling so many things. People are into different things that perhaps what you're doing, doesn't necessarily align with it. Or they just plain might not like it. And that's okay. But do you like you? I think it's so interesting when you start to connect to your childhood and how your parents raised you and, you know, what trauma did you go through. When you don't deal with it, there's just like this anger in you or there's this like resentment and there's just a part of you, even if you don't want to label that, like there's just something in you that you feel like you haven't resolved. And a lot of times we don't have the perspective of kids of like, oh, like this wasn't intentional that my dad was doing this to like neglect me and make me feel abandoned, but it happened. And so two things can be true, right? Like he wasn't trying to like inflict pain on you. He was going through something, but it affected