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Age of Pleasure

1:03:17 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Janelle Monae reached her Age of Pleasure only after healing abandonment trauma and learning that pleasure requires feeling safe.

  1. There is no pleasure without feeling safeMonae says she spent years in ages of fear and fighting before she could sit with who she was outside the fight.
  2. Forgiving her father freed her artHer dread that people would reject her songs was the same wound as a dad who did not pick her up; healing one healed the other.
  3. Coming in, not coming outShe lets people into her world on her terms, and tells listeners their sexuality can be as private or public as they want.
Executive Summary AI
  • Alex Cooper opens Call Her Daddy with Janelle Monae, fresh from five or six days in Ibiza with 10 friends and then Ocho Rios, Jamaica, where she ate at least 152 plantains and confirmed she is the friend who sends the itinerary group texts.1:21
  • Monae calls The Age of Pleasure a soundtrack to a lifestyle rather than an album: she wrote two to three songs a week for parties at her house with the Everyday People collective, never revealing they were hers, and only kept the ones people danced to and Shazammed.5:19
  • She traces her fear of rejection to a father who struggled with addiction, was in and out of prison, and often did not show up, and says forgiving him and thanking an ex who forced her to face that trauma changed how she shows up as a partner.12:19
  • She keeps her dating life private to protect partners, has been in polyamorous relationships, identifies as non-binary, and says she was put here to help rewrite the rules rather than follow them.42:20
  • Her sexuality came out through her art, from Metropolis and Cindy Mayweather to Dirty Computer and now this record, which she describes as coming in rather than coming out; the Age of Pleasure tour opens in Seattle at the end of August and runs North America through October 21st.56:56
Key Quote
“when I think about the word pleasure pleasure there is no pleasure without feeling safe”
— Janelle Monae8:22
Key Quote
“OK, but I don't give you that power over me. You're not more powerful.”
— Janelle Monae9:58
Key Quote
“this is my life here on earth. I wasn't put here to follow every rule.”
— Janelle Monae42:20