[23][25] Monáe dreamed of being a singer and a performer from a very young age,[22] and has cited the fictional character of Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz as a musical influence.

[28] During this period she worked at an Office Depot but was fired for answering a fan's e-mail using a company computer, an incident that inspired the song "Lettin' Go", which in turn attracted the attention of Big Boi.

The label's chief role was to facilitate her exposure on a much broader scale rather than develop the artist and her music, as Mitchell noted: "She was already moving, she already had her records – she had a self-contained movement."

Combs and Big Boi wanted to take their time and build her profile organically and allow the music to grow rather than put out "a hot single which everyone jumps on, and then they fade because it's just something of the moment.

After the release of the first part of the series, Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) in mid-2007, these plans were altered following signing with Sean Combs's label, Bad Boy Records, later in the year.

[37] Monáe announced plans to shoot a video for each song on The ArchAndroid and create a film, graphic novel and a touring Broadway musical based on the album.

[47] On December 11, 2011, Monáe performed at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo, Norway, including her songs 'Cold War', 'Tightrope', and a cover of the Jackson 5's 'I Want You Back'.

[54] Thematically, The Electric Lady continues the utopian cyborg concepts of its predecessors, while presenting itself in more plainspoken, introspective territory in addition to experimenting with genres beyond conventional funk and soul such as jazz ("Dorothy Dandridge Eyes"), pop-punk ("Dance Apocalyptic"), gospel ("Victory") and woozy, sensual vocal ballads ("PrimeTime", featuring Miguel).

The album features guest appearances by Prince, Solange Knowles, aforementioned Miguel and Esperanza Spalding[55] with production from previous collaborator Deep Cotton (a psychedelic punk act) and Roman GianArthur (a soul music composer), and was released to critical acclaim on September 10, 2013.

[66] In mid-2014, Monáe had an interview with Fuse where she teased a follow-up to The Electric Lady, saying "I'm working on a new, cool creative project called 'Eephus'" and "It's a big concept and you're not going to see it coming.

On August 14, 2015, Monáe and the body of her Atlanta-based Wondaland Arts Society collective performed the protest song "Hell You Talmbout", which raised awareness of the many black lives that were taken as a result of police brutality, with lyrics such as "Walter Scott, say his name.

[80] In October 2016, Monáe made her big screen acting debut in the critically acclaimed film Moonlight, alongside Naomie Harris, André Holland, and Mahershala Ali.

[83] While filming these two movie roles, Monáe remained active in music with features on Grimes' "Venus Fly" from her Art Angels album[84] and also the soundtrack for the Netflix series The Get Down with a song titled, "Hum Along and Dance (Gotta Get Down)".

[88][89] The album was accompanied by a narrative film project, and the teaser video aired nationwide in select theaters prior to screenings of Black Panther.

[90] On February 22, 2018, Monáe released "Make Me Feel" and "Django Jane" as the first two singles from Dirty Computer, both accompanied by music videos[91] and announced that the album would follow on April 27, 2018.

[94] Monáe appeared in the episode "Autofac" of the 2017 anthology series based on the work of Philip K. Dick, Electric Dreams, which premiered on Channel 4 in the UK and on Amazon Video in the US.

[102] Also in 2018, Monáe co-starred in the fantasy drama feature film Welcome to Marwen, by filmmaker and screenwriter Robert Zemeckis alongside Steve Carell and Leslie Mann.

She replaced Julia Roberts in the second season of the Amazon Prime Video series, Homecoming, playing "a tenacious woman who finds herself floating in a canoe, with no memory of how she got there or who she is.

[113] On July 4, 2021, We The People, a 10-part series of animated music videos premiered on Netflix, created by Chris Nee, with Kenya Barris as a showrunner and produced by Barack and Michelle Obama.

[119] In 2022, Monáe portrayed twin sisters Helen and Cassandra "Andi" Brand in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,[120] for which she received critical acclaim.

[128] The sensual and summery beats of the songs and accompanying music videos for tracks like "Water Slide" and "Lipstick Lover" continue to build upon depictions of queer love and acceptance common in Monáe's work.

[132] Monáe's musical styles have been described as "a soaring orchestral trip enlivened with blockbuster vocals, mysterious imagery and notes of Sixties pop and jazz".

[134] In an opinion piece for The Quietus,[135] John Calvert places Janelle Monáe within the Afrofuturism movement, pointing out her similarities to Sun Ra and George Clinton.

[136] In her first EP, Monáe gave this alter ego a back story: she was on the run after breaking the law in her home town of Metropolis by falling in love with a human, Anthony Greendown.

"[137] In her second album, Cindi Mayweather returned to Earth to liberate Metropolitans from the Great Divide, an oppressive oligarchy that used time travel to "suppress freedom and love".

[139] Matthew Valnes describes Monáe as innovating a more contemporary Neo-Afrofuturism, where the android role is used as a tool to critique the representation of Black female musicians in the funk genre.

"[1] Monáe also told the London Evening Standard she has internalized her KCK (K.C., KS) roots by wearing the working-class uniform of her parents and expressing concern that she cannot let "her community down".

[141] On the album The ArchAndroid, especially in songs like "Cold War" or "BabopbyeYa", Monáe relates "the dystopian cityscapes depicted in Metropolis to the boarded-up projects of poverty-wracked Kansas".

[137] The Telegraph also commented on her image as an artist, saying, "Sitting in a grey, airless record company office, this slight, stiff young woman delivers her speech in slow, deliberate tones, utterly expressionless.

Dressed in her trademark starched shirt and tuxedo, hair immaculately coiffed, Monáe's face is an opaque mask of perfection: all silken smooth skin, button nose and glassy brown eyes.