Standing just over five feet tall in her trademark saddle brogues, Janelle Monáe has achieved a cultural impact in 2010 that is disproportionate to her size.
On stage, the Kansas-born singer is a blur of black and white. Her signature Afro quiff routinely comes undone. She flings off a black, grim reaper cowl to reveal a white, high-necked, Victorian, ruffed shirt paired with tuxedo trousers. It's a smart retro look utterly at odds with the hyper-sexualised standard for female R&B acts, one that has made her a favourite on the pages of Vogue. But has anyone – stylists, photographers – tried to change her?
"This year? No," she smiles. when we met after her show at Shepherd's Bush Empire last month. "Previous years? Absolutely! They want to be the ones to get Janelle Monáe in a mini and stilettoes. But that's not the point of Janelle Monáe."
Monáe is one of the few artists who can get away with talking about herself in the third person. She is the frontperson of an Atlanta-based ideas collective, the Wondaland Arts Society, whose mission statement mixes mischief with high ideals. "We believe truth can be broken down with the following formula – "Truth = Love x Imagination. We believe songs are spaceships. We believe music is the weapon of the future. We believe books are stars."
They are also something she calls "thrivals". "A thrival is what I consider myself to be, and everyone [who is] a part of the Wondaland Arts Society," Monáe clarifies, "individuals who won't allow race or gender to be a barrier to them reaching their goals."
How does the collective, responsible for all her videos and a forthcoming graphic novel, work? "The best idea wins," Monáe replies, in a southern molasses purr. "Egos, they go on vacation."
In her debut album, The ArchAndroid, released in May, Monáe channels the playful sass of Outkast's Andre 3000 with the righteousness of Lauryn Hill. The ArchAndroid is an ambitious work, an extended sci-fi fantasy, that has ended the year with a Grammy nomination and a Soul Train award (it also topped the Guardian's poll of albums of the year). As Monáe's profile has grown, she has jammed with Prince and played with Stevie Wonder.
It was at a Thrivals event that she met one of her biggest heroes, the tightrope walker Philippe Petit, whose story was told in the film Man on Wire. "He came to my soundcheck looking for me," she beams. "And his pants were like, way up here, and they were stripy! He had heard of me from a Parisian fan – 'Do you know Janelle Monáe? She has a song called "Tightrope".' He's one of the most fearless men to exist."
Monáe was in Dublin when she heard about her Grammy nominations for "Tightrope" and The ArchAndroid, having just arrived after a trip to Moscow at the invitation of designer Karl Lagerfeld. "I was glad, 'cause it is always something on an artist's mind. Not when I'm creating, though. I don't think, 'I wanna create because I want to win an award.' Those aren't my goals."
When you ask what those goals might be, Monáe sounds more like an activist than a pop star. "What I'm focused on is uniting people. When I looked out on to the audience tonight I saw so many different shades of people out there. That's what I want to create – something like what Barack Obama says, a purple state. Not just catering to a red or a blue state but combining those colours," she says, warming to her subject. "Music is the common denominator that brings us together. I want to celebrate our differences more. And do away with these categories! When I have children I really want them to live in a world where menswear and womenswear don't exist. If my son wants to put on a skirt, I don't care."
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