Description
Janelle Monáe’s fourth album exchanges science fiction for lusty romance, creating a rapturous Afrofuturistic sound collage for sunny days and sticky nights. The Age of Pleasure finds the singer and actor at her most celebratory, liberatory and self-loving, detailing fun of all kinds.
A roster of eclectic collaborators balances The Age of Pleasure’s masculine and feminine energies. Grace Jones lends her husky French to the seductive interlude “Ooh La La.” Doechii channels Good Girl Gone Bad-era Rihanna in a raspy, haughty verse on “Phenomenal.” The hypnotic spoken-word opening to “The Rush” is voiced by Black cinema bombshell Nia Long. Of all the features, Ghanaian-American singer Amaarae best matches Monáe’s apocalyptically horny energy: “Fucking you like it’s my destiny.” Even blinded by lust, no one denigrates women as conquests. Tender aftercare arrives in the polyamory ode “Only Have Eyes 42” and the acoustic remembrance “A Dry Red.”