Janelle Monae Covers Essence - Why She Wears Black and White

I heard about Janelle Monae when Archandroid came out, and then I found she had a previous album which I actually preferred. I also like her look and her videos and it was pleasant to find she is on the cover of Essence for May. [See Kerry Washington on March cover]

When asked about why she wears mostly black and white, she replied;

"It's a dedication to uniformity and I'm a minimalist by heart, but a lot of it had to do with me wanting to have a uniform like the working class, like my mom and my grandmother. My grandmother had 16 sisters and brothers and they all had to share one pair of shoes. And so that's the family that I come from -- I don't ever want to be detached from that. I use it as motivation for my music and to just keep me centered, grounded and to stay on message."


According to the Huffington Post, Janelle Monae is from Kansas and "grew up in a working-class family where her mother was employed as a janitor, her father was a trash man and her stepfather worked at the post office. Her grandmother once worked as a sharecropper in Mississippi, and worked at a jailhouse until she passed away."

Images via Kweku Alston