EXCLUSIVE: Be the first to pre-stream Janelle Monáe's new album

Here comes, at long last, the inimitable, award-winning, songwriter, performer, producer, CoverGirl and avant-garde funkstress. Janelle Monáe is back again, ready to release her full-length “emotion picture” to the masses.

But as always, Janelle is not ready to talk about music just yet. She’d rather talk about her past and how those fertile powerful experiences forced her to create her coming album The Electric Lady that incl. “Q.U.E.E.N.” feat. Erykah Badu

According to Monáe, “I went back to Kansas City after my tour for my debut album The ArchAndroid. And when I looked around me, I decided I wanted to make a raw, revealing album all about my life and the things I’d experienced in my community— about the laughter in the parks, the jams bumping in the cars, the jokes told over kitchen tables, all the life and warmth and struggles I felt there. But I also wanted to figure out how to take Kansas City to the future… like a surreal Parliament album with lyrics by Octavia Butler and album art by Salvador Dali.”

A lot of folks think I work hard onstage because of James Brown. But they’ve never met my mother!”

Inspired by her mother and other matriarchs, Monáe began to write lyrics and songs about rebel women who refused to be marginalized and dared to live their life boldly and unapologetically in a distant future.

How did your album get its name?

For years I’d been painting this woman’s physique—the silhouette of her hips— I have hundreds of these paintings with the same feminine figure over and over…this glowing Technicolor woman…seen from behind… regal, powerful and electric…

My colleagues and friends told me to name this mysterious figure because she seemed to be a totem, a powerful symbol for me. So I named her The Electric Lady, and that’s where the album’s title came from.”

How was the recording process?

The recording process was fun, rewarding, but also strained by Monáe's newfound need to be more courageous and personally revealing in her storytelling. “To do this album properly, I had to revisit some turbulent chapters in my life, deal with some questions and experiences left over from my childhood. There were so many things I had questions about. Sexual things. Racial Things.

You can pre-order The Electric Lady on iTunes now!