So, new silo on tap … expanding the bar repertoire a bit … “Vintage Reprise” (as the title alludes) revisits riffs, clips, columns and/or general commentary from the editorial archives … somewhere in the contextual realm of a rewind remind … or, quite literally, a vintage reprise … thus pretensed … onward into revisitation station the first … noggin jots musing about the musical stylings of a one ms. janelle monáe — avanti, alee, cheers, sante … enjoi

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:: Vintage Reprise : Crazy, Classic, Life [ fr. Yin Motif: The Cosmic BG-ROM Exhumes… Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer ; 01.10.19] ::

Voices from the past echo through the anamnesis:

You told us, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the—and the pursuit of happiness…”

Specious declarations of new world independence testify beneath aquatic synth and deep, pulsating bass; the inter-generational clarion call segues into Monáe’s own sovereign claim on behalf of this 21st Century iconoclass terra nova …

The tonal medley between cantillating soliloquy and spoken-word poetry establish orchestrated blueprints, boasting the inherent majesty found in this fundamental reckoning of comrades made kin, sharing renovated bonds of the formerly-oppressed discovering essential selves in their natural-born skin … and reflection of love supreme in the divine feminine …

We don’t need another ruler
All of my friends are kings
(Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh)
I’m not America’s nightmare
I’m the American dream
(Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh)
Just let me live my life

…

I just wanna find a God
And I hope she loves me too

That crazy, classic, life … this second chapter mirrors modern culture’s second nature … beneath all of its apparent idealism, this record reflects the duplicity of equanimity in a society, bound and broken, found and fragmented by the politics of apparent identity – the data-driven dismantling of our digital native community. Monáe’s tone pivots – and so the script – just beyond the bridge, from rhythmic ephemera to gallant staccato, marking a most-immediate vibe shift in the populous, where trivial factions convert friends to foes, and recoded kids remain caught in the hegemonic scope of false dichotomies:

Handcuffed in a bando
White boy in his sandals
Police like a Rambo
Blow it out, blow it out like a candle, Sambo
Me and you was friends, but to them, we the opposite

It feels like a post-Coachella comedown, the reality check of an ersatz utopia descending from fantasy oasis to concrete jungle … sometimes, it just takes the stark words of a humble bard to break the binary divide: immediately, between carbon-coding tech bros and neon sirens of neo-soul … regardless of proximal language, for the most part, we’re all just crystal grid creatives …

The same mistake, I’m in jail, you on top of sxxt
You living life while I’m walking around moppin’ sxxt
Tech kid, backpack, no, you a college kid
All I wanted was to break the rules like you
All I wanted was someone to love me too
But no matter where it was I always stood out
Black Waldo dancing with the thick brows
We was both running naked at the luau
We was both on shrooms praying face down, waist down

… young, live, and scene …

So if the world should end tonight
I had a crazy, classic, life

And so, if the apocalypse should arrive just before the dawn, let the ledger show, this very sequence of physical experiences – however fantastically porous beyond reason – transcended limitations, heretofore presumed fait accompli, in triumphant pursuit of enduring design … immortality, for the kids, for the culture, if only in the metaphysical record of prismatic pop song. Insane, infinite, animate.

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The Cosmic BG-ROM Exhumes… Janelle Monáe’s “Dirty Computer”