Full disclosure, when you’re going up against an idol, you’re in for it.
I’m not into yoga, seeing that I come from the land that invented yoga before the rest of the world discovered it. I wasn’t into yoga, at least not until I came across Janelle Monae’s ‘Yoga’ ft. Jidenna for Wondaland’s upcoming compilation EP, The Eephus.
It is not everyday that Janelle Monáe collaborates with artists to make her kind of music. When the Bjork of R&B announced her tour with New Zealand’s very own Kimbra, I was hyped up to see them jam their way through Australia and New Zealand. Alas, that tour just remained an unfulfilled dream and never came to pass. It is hard for a fan like myself to forgive and forget it happened given it is a rare occurrence in NZ, but with her latest track ‘Yoga’, I’m ready to move on, especially since I’ve been listening to it on repeat.
For those who get their rocks off analyzing music, ‘Yoga’ isn’t an anthemic track from the artist; it’s a club-friendly track about you guessed it, sex. An R&B/rap combo masked under some well produced pop, Yoga’s got it all. A really good singer, a new MC, an infectious hook, smart verses, tongue-in-cheek lyrics, good beats, the bells and whistles to make it to the top of the contemporary charts; except it isn’t from anyone you’d normally expect.
And that led to an interesting conversation in the cafeteria at work today. A conversation on who should be making what kind of music and why they should be making it. Since the video debuted a week ago, reviews and comments for the track have been mixed – brickbats and bouquets thrown in for good measure – and comments of her selling out to make radio-friendly music are more prominent than most, begging me to ask if you heard the track on repeat like I did today. If you did, you’d realise that ‘Yoga’ isn’t about her selling out. It’s about her making music that doesn’t necessarily need to be intelligent, after all, you’ve only got to be bobbing your head and twerking your ass to it, not analysing it.
It must be a burden to sound smart all the time. Ask Kanye West. Despite his genius, he still does something stupid, reminding everyone that he isn’t Yeezus. Beyonce and Jay Z on the other hand are what I called calculated smart-asses. Every move they make is calculated and doesn’t take away from the reason why they’re popular. While I can’t say the same for Jay Z (Tidal and all), wife Beyonce can certainly tutor him on the intricacies of sounding pretty smart when you need to.
She’s exploring a new genre of music and that’s what smart females do to keep themselves relevant. The pop sound that the song dons does very little to mask the preachy lyrics and admittedly it’s odd to hear Janelle sing Baby bend over, but when she’s singing it that good, who really cares. She must’ve anticipated these reactions and probably modified the second verse to balance the silliness on the first. Jidenna’s rap verse isn’t a rap jewel, maybe a bauble at best, but that’s just a sidenote. He’s all about the sex too and damn, he doesn’t try to hide it too hard.
She preachy and vulgar, but brutally honest. Like every Monáe track there is, this one’s got a message too. I wanna last, wanna last forever, I wanna dance, wanna dance all night. You cannot police me, so get off my areola. Get off my areola! Time to get off that train and enjoy the music!
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