As previously announced, Janelle Monáe is set to receive the trailblazer award at the 13th annual Women in Music event on Dec. 6 in New York City. Ahead of the event, Billboard sat down with Monáe to reflect upon some early moments in her career, including her childhood, the time she shared a stage with Prince, and her “equestrian days.”
The first picture given to Monáe, which elicits an, “Oh, my God!” from the singer, features her at around the age of 12 or 13. “This is me, with finger waves in my hair, with beads in my hair, with nails with acrylic [on] my fingers,” she tells Billboard. “I wanna say I was dressed for a church musical? I had to have been going to church in this outfit. You can’t see the whole thing, but I remember it…we have come a mighty long way!”
The singer is also shown a photo taken during an early live performance, around the time when she released her song “Lettin’ Go!,” which Monáe wrote after getting fired from Office Depot for responding to fans on the company’s computer.
“I wanna say this is one of the first shows I did,” Monáe states. “Big Boi from OutKast, who is like a big brother to me and has been a mentor to me invited me to perform, and this was in Atlanta…this is when I was trying to understand myself as an artist.”
Monáe is then shown another live show shot from the time she performed “Givin’ Em What They Love” with Prince. “He was rolled out — you can’t see it, but he got rolled out on a dolly,” Monáe fondly recalls. “He loved playing tricks like this, he got rolled out on a dolly under the stage, nobody knew he was coming, and I was the opening act for him, and the fact that he came on stage with us before he had to perform, it meant the world.”
The singer is given another memorable picture of herself from what she calls her “equestrian days.” As Monáe explains, when she finds something that she likes, she buys it in bulk. She once went through a phase when she was obsessed with riding horses and sporting equestrian wear.
“I bought probably 15 pairs of these khaki riding pants, blazers, boots,” she says, “And that was my style for like two years. And I don’t own a horse. I just wanted to pretend like I did!”
You can watch the full video above to see Janelle Monáe react to even more pictures from her past, and make sure tune in to the Women in Music red carpet pre-show live on Twitter from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. EST on Dec. 6.
