No! It’s a spectrum, and everyone needs to realize and respect it. Respect the spectrum!

You also work with Time’s Up, and I think that’s really important. We gotta protect women’s rights. What work are you doing moving forward to help LGBTQ people gain a foothold in the film industry and media? And how has Time’s Up helped open up some doors?

I'm honored to be a part of Time’s Up and support women. And that's inclusive of all women. As a black woman, however, that's what I know and that's the lens that I'm looking at things through. Whether it be behind the scenes, producing and engineering, to writing or being in front of the camera, there's a lot more work that needs to be done.

I've also started my own organization, Fem the Future, which is a grassroots organization that provides opportunities across the entertainment and the arts, through mentorship and education, for those who identify as women. Through our work, we try to highlight and empower women behind the mic, behind the camera, the stage, the screen, the boardroom. Everywhere. And I founded Fem the Future because I was looking to collaborate with more women on the engineering side and production side and songwriting side, and it was so difficult to find women in these roles. It was frustrating. And I understood why. I said, "Oh, okay. We gotta make more noise." And so I decided to do something about it.

With Dirty Computer, I made a bigger declaration to myself — that I'm not putting out an album if I can't be all of me. You're gonna take the blackness, you're gonna take the fact that I love science fiction. You're gonna take the fact that I am a free ass motherfucker. You're gonna take that all in and because that is what you're gonna get.

That's amazing. I think women are phased out of creative industries by the quote-unquote “boy’s club” way early on. It’s more than just getting them the job — it's giving them the training, making them feel comfortable enough to make mistakes and lean into something and have a girl’s club. So they can get all the experience they need to be at the top of the game.

Let me tell you. It's not that we're not there, we're just not given the opportunity. We can compete at a high level. It's what you said, it's about us pulling for each other. And it's about men, also, who are in the experience of power actively seeking out more women. As artists, we get the opportunity to have this platform and shine light. And that’s the blessing.

Yes. I want to segue into you as an artist, and the music you’ve created and brought into the world. People who know you know that you're in control of the Janelle Monáe story, and your saga, and how the saga unfolds. Can you walk me through your character arc from The ArchAndroid all the way to Dirty Computer, and all of the things you've learned about yourself through your music?

That's a great question. I like to think that I know everything that a project is gonna do and be when I go into it — “I'm gonna go in and write this song, and it's gonna mean this.” But you know like I know, once you put something out and you sit with it, you find out new things that you weren’t even paying attention to. People will come up to you and say, "This is what this means to me." And you're like, "Wow, I had no clue that that's what I was saying, and that you would feel that way after you heard it." The beauty of art is that it reveals itself over time, even to the artists who create it.

I think I do have strong visions; I always have strong visions. With ArchAndroid, I knew what I wanted the content to be, and I used the tools that I knew how to use at that time to create it. In my projects, I always challenge myself to grow and learn my voice and how to stretch beyond what I can comfortably do. So I started to engineer myself more, which meant I got to spend more time with me. I produced as well. And I'm a writer, and a storyteller. So as I grow and as I'm taking in information and growing at this exponential rate, I try my best to create music and albums that support that, that allow me to completely be all of me.

With Dirty Computer, I made a bigger declaration to myself — that I'm not putting out an album if I can't be all of me. You're gonna take the blackness, you're gonna take the fact that I love science fiction. You're gonna take the fact that I am a free ass motherfucker. You're gonna take that all in and because that is what you're gonna get.