Janelle Monáe has performed jazzy renditions of her “favourite songs” as part of a new Ralph Lauren campaign.
The star featured in a new short video from the fashion house, which showcased its Spring 2021 collection and purple label.
A few minutes into the video, Monáe appeared, getting ready for her performance. As she did so, in a VoiceOver she explained: “Once upon a time, we gathered. We got dressed up. We were free. We were liberated. We were fun. We were time travellers. We danced, we loved, we loved hard. We told jokes, we laughed. We were wild, we were careless, we were young. We have our hearts and we look good.”
Once she was behind the mic, and joined by a jazz band, the star delivered versions of Frank Sinatra’s ‘All Or Nothing At All’ and her 2006 collaboration with Jaspects, ’Peachtree Blues’.
Midway through the performance, Monáe stopped to address viewers. “I think about all of the icons, all of the bold, the brave, the Black artists that helped pave the way for me,” she said. “One in particular that I wanna honour is the Dorothy Dandridge.” She then performed her own song ‘Dorothy Dandridge Eyes’.
The performance closed with a new performance of her 2010 breakthrough single ‘Tightrope’. Watch the whole set in full above now.
Recently, Monáe scored her first Oscar nomination when her song ‘Turntables’ was shortlisted for Best Original Song. The track originally appeared in the documentary All In: The Fight For Democracy, which follows former Congresswoman for Georgia Stacey Abrams and explores the history of voter suppression in the United States.
The song also marked Monáe’s first piece of new music since her latest album ‘Dirty Computer’, which was released in 2018 and featured collaborations with The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Zoë Kravitz, Grimes and Pharrell Williams.
