
Janelle Monáe Says She “Traveled Back” To See David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust Live In Seventies

Janelle Monáe claimed she noticed David Bowie carry out as Ziggy Stardust within the Seventies, a second that profoundly formed her inventive imaginative and prescient.
Janelle Monáe delivered a surreal second throughout a current interview the place she claimed to have witnessed David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust efficiency stay within the Seventies.
The revelation got here throughout a sit-down with Lucy Dacus for Rolling Stone’s Musicians on Musicians sequence, the place the Grammy-nominated artist described a vivid, virtually cinematic expertise that formed her inventive path.
“I traveled back into the 1970s and I saw him do Ziggy Stardust and it was incredible,” Monáe stated. “I was backstage, and this is what I want to do.”
The assertion caught Dacus off guard, however Monáe didn’t flinch. She leaned into the metaphor, utilizing it to clarify how Bowie’s theatrical and boundary-breaking model helped her embrace her personal inventive id.
“So I jetted back to, you know, 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,’” she added. “And not even just in sexuality, but in how we see the world.”
Monáe, who earlier this yr carried out Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” on the 2025 Grammy Awards tribute to Quincy Jones, has drawn comparisons to Bowie for her genre-bending sound and theatrical performances.
The interview, printed October 20, 2025, spotlighted Monáe’s admiration for artists who defy expectations and reinvent themselves.
“Let’s go outside the mundane and what people know us as,” she stated. “Leave room to allow yourself to transform.”
The full conversation is a part of Rolling Stone’s annual Musicians on Musicians sequence, which pairs artists for unfiltered discussions about creativity, affect and evolution.
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