Janelle Monáe Says She Time-Traveled to the 1970s to See David Bowie: ‘I Was Backstage’

Some music fans will spend their entire lives mourning the concerts they were never able to attend. Concert films have remedied this slightly, but Janelle Monáe has discovered an even better solution: time travel.

In conversation with Lucy Dacus for Rolling Stone‘s Musicians on Musicians series, Monáe recalled her experience seeing David Bowie perform The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars live approximately a decade before she was born.

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It all started with an inquiry about Halloween, a holiday that Monáe plans for two years in advance. It fulfills the creative pull she feels towards transformation and world-building in music. “I think when I saw David Bowie,” they said, before Dacus cut in for clarification, asking, “You saw him?”

“I did,” Monáe confirmed. “I traveled back into the 1970s, and I saw him do Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. It was incredible.” There’s more to the story, but Dacus wanted to make sure she was hearing all of this right. “You traveled back?” she asked, again.

“Yeah, I was backstage,” Monáe responded. “I was like, this is what I want to do. I jetted back to the 2000s and I was like, I can have the musical, make the music, create the lyrics, and create community around transformation and being queer — not even just in sexuality, but in how we see the world.” Monáe previously named Ziggy Stardust as an influence for their 2010 debut album, The ArchAndroid.

How did we get here again? Oh, right, Halloween. “I think that’s the synergy between Halloween,” Monáe said, getting the conversation back on track. “I feel like people give themselves permission to be on my frequency.”

Dacus understood, kind of, in a real “What the hell, sure” way.

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