After an “inspired” Spotify search this week, Brooklyn native Carrie Lipton stumbled upon the idea of listening to contemporary R&B artist, Janelle Monae.
“I just saw her on a friend’s playlist, and thought, ‘why not?’” Lipton reports. “And I instantly fell in love with the idea of loving her music.”
Lipton started small: “First it was my LP of ‘Q.U.E.E.N.’ Hearing it always takes me back to my first time I realized I was listening to it.”
Since then, her passion for following Monae’s music has escalated. Friend Sonali Reddy reports that for any upcoming Monae concert, Lipton must be the “first in line” in order to tweet about it.
Adds Lipton: “Anyone who hasn’t discovered discovering Janelle’s music needs to discover getting with the program.”
Colleague Mindy Pham similarly details the “egregious amount of time” Lipton spent curating a Janelle Monae Fan Fan Blog, filled mainly with pictures of her listening to ‘Dance Apocalyptic’ and watching the music video for ‘Tightrope.’
“There’s even a special page of photos where she’s posing with the blog,” Reddy adds. “It’s weird.”
Lipton’s mother showed concern for her daughter’s descent into the idea of liking Janelle Monae. “I asked her, ‘what are you going to do, become a groupie’s groupie?’” she states. “I can’t even figure out what we’re talking about after that point. It’s too much.”
“Finding out that I have a new interest was an uplifting process,” Lipton claims, while donning a cape with an imprinted image of the cape that Monae wore to the Grammy Awards. “I was going through a tough time in my life, but when I found Janelle Monae’s music, it really spoke to the idea of speaking to me.”
