By Peter Thomas Ricci<\/p>\n
Imagine, if you will, the epic opening to Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s sensational Lollapalooza set: a large white podium, with steps ascending to a platform, sits in the stage\u2019s middle; various instruments are ready to be played; and then, smoke \u2013 it starts billowing out from the stage\u2019s sides; and then, music \u2013 Richard Strauss\u2019 epic \u201cAlso Sprach Zarathustra\u201d (aka, Kubrick\u2019s theme from \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey\u201d) begins seeping from the speakers, and as that iconic melody reaches its climax, Mon\u00e1e enters the stage, dressed head to toe in a custom outfit that commands respect.<\/p>\n
It only made sense, therefore, that Mon\u00e1e eventually performed her now-classic song \u201cQ.U.E.E.N.\u201d at the fourth track in her set, because her appearance at Lollapalooza only reified her status as a high-ranking royal in American music; indeed, during a remarkable performed of \u201cScrewed,\u201d off her 2018 album \u201cDirty Computer,\u201d Mon\u00e1e\u2019s dancers placed a legitimate throne upon the white podium, upon which Mon\u00e1e sat. And make no mistake \u2013 although \u201cScrewed\u201d was only the second song in her set (Mon\u00e1e opened with \u201cCrazy, Classic, Life,\u201d perhaps my favorite song off \u201cDirty Computer\u201d), it already well established that she deserved every bit of ecstatic valorization that the crowd heaped her way.<\/p>\n
Simply, every aspect of Mon\u00e1e\u2019s set was sensational: her voice, which effortlessly transitions from soaring, high-octave acrobatics to incredibly precise rapping; her band, which (sans her excellent guitarist) was composed entirely of black women, and was as sharp and attentive as any rock\/R&B band on an American stage; her choreography, which included four other dancers (also black women) and perfectly complemented the themes of her songs, be it sexuality, cultural pride, or emotional purity in the Internet age; her interplay with the audience, which ranged from cues to political statements; and lastly, to her overall aesthetic, which involved several costume changes and arrangements that bordered on performance art. For years, I have heard of Mon\u00e1e\u2019s live prowess \u2013 her unmatched consistency, her willingness to take risks, her audaciousness \u2013 but even that did not prepare me for what I experienced on that Lollapalooza stage.<\/p>\n
Political Music in the Age of Trump<\/strong><\/p>\n Special mention should also be made to the unabashedly political tone of Mon\u00e1e\u2019s set. From her open salutes to the LGBTQ community, to the sexuality of her choreography, to a mid-set address to the crowd that included a call for Donald Trump\u2019s impeachment, Mon\u00e1e\u2019s politics were as much front and center as her music, and the two fused brilliantly into a statement \u2013 a manifesto, if you will \u2013 on making art as a black woman in the America of 2019.<\/p>\n Which is what made the headliner set of Childish Gambino \u2013 the performing name of actor Donald Glover \u2013 so utterly confusing. Originally a star on NBC\u2019s \u201cCommunity,\u201d Glover has released three albums under the Gambino name, and all have been proficient (if hardly revolutionary) albums of hip hop and R&B. And that, from my vantage point, largely describes the set that Glover delivered, at least on musical terms: his voice (especially on the opening \u201cAtavista\u201d) was occasionally dazzling; his backing band and singers were all first rate, even if they were largely obscured by the (admittedly interesting) lighting that Glover employed; his stage presence was goofy and engaging, with fun dance moves and wide-eyed expressions; and the music was perfectly fine for a summer evening, but miles away from any true innovation in today\u2019s hip hop\/R&B climate. That latter point was particularly notable with the tracks from 2016\u2019s \u201cAwake, My Love!\u201d, which are mere facsimiles of far superior works from Prince and George Clinton (and as a point of comparison: I watched 78-year-old Clinton deliver a set at the Aragon in early June that was, musically, far more visionary and incendiary).<\/p>\n Reviewing a Donald Glover performance, however, means engaging with far more than the artist\u2019s music, and that is where my confusion festered that second night at Lollapalooza. Starting with his FX series \u201cAtlanta\u201d in 2016 and reaching its apex with his 2018 single \u201cThis is America\u201d \u2013 which, at the time of this writing, has racked up an astonishing 577,714,194 views \u2013 Glover has increasingly posed as a uniquely political, uniquely woke artist, one who is unafraid to speak his mind on increasingly bombastic terms. Consider this quote from a 2018 profile of Glover in The New Yorker<\/em> magazine, in response to whether there is \u201canything\u201d he is bad at:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, no. Probably just people. People don\u2019t like to be studied, or bested. I\u2019m fine with it. I don\u2019t really like people that much. People accept me now because I have power, but they still think, Oh, he thinks he\u2019s the golden flower of the black community, thinks he\u2019s so different. But I am, though! I feel like Jesus. I do feel chosen. My struggle is to use my humanity to create a classic work\u2014but I don\u2019t know if humanity is worth it, or if we\u2019re going to make it. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s much time left.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis is America\u201d had yet to drop when Glover made those remarks, but it\u2019s easy to make the connections between those comments and the resulting music video, which is a no-holds-barred assault on such topics as racial inequality, police brutality, and white supremacy. For instance, the heady, knotty video features such images as: Glover wearing pants that harken back to the Confederacy; Glover using a machine gun and mowing down black worshipers, a la Dylann Roof; a police car being led away by the Grim Reaper, and Glover running, terrified, from a lynching mob.<\/p>\n There are certainly points of a contention with Glover\u2019s statements and politics \u2013 and I say that as someone of the far left \u2013 but this is not the space to engage with such thinking; rather, for the purposes of a Lollapalooza recap, it is very worth pointing out that none of the aforementioned political positions \u2013 none of the messianic zeal, none of the salvos against white supremacy \u2013 were present in any shape or form during Glover\u2019s set, which not only prominently featured \u201cThis is America,\u201d but is only the latest stop on Glover\u2019s latest tour, which is called (wait for it) the \u201cThis is America Tour.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Does Glover have an obligation to make his concerts political? Of course not. I have seen more than 10 acts thus far at Lollapalooza, and Mon\u00e1e\u2019s has ben the only one with ardent political tones. Yet, consider what happened when the opening moments of \u201cThis is America\u201d began playing at Lollapalooza: the largely white crowd erupted with rapturous glee, and began jumping and dancing to the music and singing its various phrases (including the opening verse from Young Thug). The song played out, with Glover dancing and interacting with his band, and then it ended; Glover retreated to the side of the stage, beckoned the crowd for an encore, and then returned and began playing \u201cSober.\u201d There was not even a faint whisper of the political in the performance.<\/p>\n So what is my point, with all this? To point out that it is impossible, at this point, to separate Glover\u2019s politics from his art, given that he himself has merged them in such public, spectacular ways. And knowing that, it is incredibly confusing to reconcile the Glover of the Lollapalooza stage \u2013 apolitical, goofy, dancing, looking to have a good time \u2013 with the Glove who makes the following remarks to The New Yorker<\/em>: \u201cBlackness is always seen through a lens of whiteness\u2014the lens of what white people can profit from at that moment. That hasn\u2019t changed through slavery and Jim Crow and civil-rights marches and housing laws and \u2018We\u2019ll shoot you.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Perhaps Glover is still figuring out a way to make his Childish Gambino performances political; perhaps he just wants to have a good time; perhaps he is compromising on those politics for the sake of a payday (Lollapalooza headliners make millions for their sets); perhaps this tension is visible in other aspects of his art, which include roles in the Star Wars \u201cSolo\u201d spinoff and recent \u201cThe Lion King\u201d reboot. All I know is that Glover\u2019s set, and its many irreconcilable parts, was deeply confusing \u2013 especially coming after Mon\u00e1e\u2019s magnificent set, which proved how brilliantly political manifestos can be delivered through musical mediums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Peter Thomas Ricci Imagine, if you will, the epic opening to Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s sensational Lollapalooza set: a large white podium, with steps ascending to a platform, sits in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}