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Janelle Monáe Robinson ( jə-NEL moh-NAY; born December 1, 1985) is an American singer, songwriter, rapper and actress. She has received ten Grammy Award nominations, and is the recipient of a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Children's and Family Emmy Award. Monáe has also been honored with the ASCAP Vanguard Award; as well as the Rising Star Award (2015) and the Trailblazer of the Year Award (2018) from Billboard Women in Music.

Monáe began her musical career in 2003 with the release of her demo album, The Audition. She signed with Bad Boy Records to release her debut extended play (EP), Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) (2007). It received critical acclaim and narrowly entered the Billboard 200. She signed a joint venture with Atlantic Records to release her debut studio album, The ArchAndroid (2010), which peaked at number 17 on the chart. The following year, she guest performed on fun.'s 2011 single "We Are Young," which received diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100. Monáe's second studio album, The Electric Lady (2013), debuted at number five on the Billboard 200.

Monáe's third studio album, Dirty Computer (2018)—also a concept album—was released to widespread critical acclaim; it was named best album of the year by several publications. The album peaked within the top ten of the Billboard 200, and was accompanied by both Monae's Dirty Computer Tour and the science fiction film of the same name. In 2022, she wrote the cyberpunk story collection, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, based on the album. Her fourth studio album, The Age of Pleasure (2023) was nominated for Album of the Year at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, becoming her second nomination in the category as a lead artist.

Monáe has also ventured into acting, first gaining attention for starring in the 2016 films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. For portraying engineer Mary Jackson in the latter, she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has since starred in the films Harriet (2019) and Glass Onion (2022), and the television series Homecoming (2020). For her performance in Glass Onion, Monáe won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2022, she won a Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Program for her role in the TV series We the People. She launched her record label, Wondaland Arts Society in a joint venture with Epic Records in 2015, and has signed artists including Jidenna, Roman GianArthur and St. Beauty.

In 2019 she inducted Janet Jackson into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Early life

Janelle Monáe Robinson was born on December 1, 1985, in Kansas City, Kansas, and was raised in Quindaro, a working-class community of Kansas City. Her mother, Janet, worked as a janitor and a hotel maid. Her father, Michael Robinson Summers, was a truck driver. Monáe's parents separated when Monáe was a toddler and her mother later married a postal worker. Monáe has a younger sister, Kimmy, from her mother's remarriage.