Violet Stars, Happy Hunting
Tracy Howse
Janelle Monáe is
an R&B musician who, in her music, claims to be Cindi Mayweather. In her line notes Monáe says that Cindi Mayweather
is an android with “a rock-star proficiency package and a working soul” who has
to abide to the rules of the robots (Monáe 2008). Monáe uses Cindi as an aide
to discussing issues of our modern world.
Violet Stars, Happy Hunting
starts out
with Monáe singing “I-I-I-I’m an alien from outer space,” during which two
guitars enter. There are background voices that repeat and add to what she is
saying, as well as ambient noise in the voice that hits a pitch and somewhat
falls. As these continue, bass and snare enter and give the song a heavier
sound. The verse continues with this instrumentation, background singing, and
ambient noise. During chorus Monáe and the backup singers continue singing with
this instrumentation and ambient noises, which become less noticeable. The song
continues in this general form with some added synth which glissandos down
during and creates a mystic sound. At 1:39
there is a bridge which has voices whispering, apparently searching for Cindi
Mayweather and at 2:02 there is a
rap-like section which leads into a development of the chorus. At 3:07 there is an outro which consists of sharp
repetitive noises and the song abruptly ends. This section does connect into
the next song Many Moons.
During this
song, the robotic elements are evident in the music, especially the ambient
background noises. These noises are the esthetic of The Important Sound of
Things Falling Apart. The setting for this song is explained in The March of The Wolfmasters. At this
point of the story, Cindi is explaining her position in society and is
seemingly interrupted by the Wolfmasters. The ambient noises and the violent
sounds heard in the bridge exemplify this idea because the sounds in the song
make the audience think that the robot and world are falling apart. Another
robotic esthetic shown in this song is Paranoia. During this verse she says
“I’m a product of the man” three times and says “they’ve come to destroy me”
three times as well. By repeating these, Monáe is giving the image of Cindi being
concerned for her life. These paranoid fears are fueled by the industrialized
and terrifying world that Monáe has painted for us.
Cindi
Mayweather is also example of the Blurring of Man and Machine and how this
leads to an Uncanny Valley. On the
cover of the album, we see Monáe in her “Cindi Mayweather” form as part human
and part robot. This cyborg appearance gives the audience an uneasy feeling due
to the fact that it is difficult to place this character in one category. Monáe
adds to this uneasy feeling in her line notes by claiming that Cindi has a
working soul, which is even more unnerving when you consider the ending of the
play Rossum's Universal Robots. In
RUR, the robots are eventually given a soul and, with this soul, have the ability
to overpower the humans. In that way, this explores the esthetic of the uncanny
valley because it gives the listener a concern about how “mechanical” this
creation really is.
When asked
about Cindi Mayweather, Monáe said to MTV, "Cindy is an android and I love
speaking about the android because they are the new “other" (Monáe 2010). Through Cindi, Monáe is
discussing issues about being an “outsider” or unaccepted culture. In Violet Stars, Happy Hunting, Monáe continues
to address modern race issues by comparing them to the dilemmas of Cindi. One
of these dilemmas Monáe wants to bring up is that of race. In the song, we hear
“I’m a slave girl without a race” and says that they are chasing and uprooting
her kind. This statement can be linked to the fact that African Americans in America
today were uprooted from their homes through The Middle Passage, or the
crossing of Africans to the Americans. During this transfer, these people were
taken from their culture and placed in a new culture. Just as Cindi discusses
the fact that she is “without a race,” she is discussing that she has been
taken from her alien planet and brought to a culture in which she does not
belong. Monáe’s feeling about the African Americans who were taken from their
culture; they were removed from their culture and placed into one in which they
do not have roots. Thus, they must create their own history and future.
Further Reading
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