Welcome to Janelle Monáe’s Dreamworld

There’s an old story about Octavia Butler that I often return to: A young man once asked the visionary science fiction novelist the answer to ending all the suffering in the world. Although she’s publishing a book and stars in movies, Monáe is best known as a musician, and it was her 2018 concept album, Dirty Computer, that defined her Afrofuturist visions. “What Afrofuturism does is it allows Black people to tell our stories, from our voice, of how we see ourselves in the future, thriving,” Monáe tells me. In The Memory Librarian, Monáe’s titular character collects and keeps people’s memories, wielding a terrifying power.