In the week leading up to Ivies, Her Campus Bowdoin will be providing you with everything you need to know in our Ivies Survival Guide.
If you didn’t know already, which would be really weird, Janelle Monáe is the headlining artist for Ivies 2011.
Janelle hails from Kansas City and has finally gotten noticed with this year’s full length album The ArchAndroid, which snagged a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary R&B Album. She’s a 25 year old pocket sized beauty with the most fabulous pompadour haircut you’ve ever seen, and will be sure to keep us dancing all day with her energetic dance moves and jazzy combination of funk and hip-hop.
I first discovered Janelle Monáe this past summer during my internship at MTV Iggy when I had to write the copy for her “Tightrope” music video. Since Youtube has disabled embedding for this particular video – which is also her most popular single to date – I felt it necessary to steal it from MTV’s site and include a shameless plug for myself.
Be sure to check out her video for “Cold War,” a close-up of her heart-shaped face and expressive eyes (sorry if it seems like I’m talking more about her looks than her music, but I hope Mac Miller doesn’t get too disctracted by her beauty. I’ll explain a little more about that in “What You Need to Know About Mac Miller.”)
“Many Moons” is from her first EP Metropolis – The Chase Suite, a conceptual work that went largely unnoticed on the Billboard charts but was great nonetheless.
Now, go put this playlist on while studying or taking a shower, and then you’ll be one step closer to being ready for Ivies 2011.