Janelle Monáe And Erykah Badu’s Video For ‘Q.U.E.E.N’ Is Just As Awesome As We Expected

It is time to give up, everybody. Just stop what you’re doing and go home. Her majesties Janelle Monáe and Erykah Badu have released the video for ‘Q.U.E.E.N’, the first single off Monáe forthcoming album Electric Lady.

Directed by Alan Ferguson — boyfriend of Solange — the clip opens on a spokesperson from the ‘Ministry Of Droids’ of Metropolis (the conceptual haven of Monae’s android alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather), who introduces an exhibition at The Living Museum, “where legendary rebels throughout history have been frozen in suspended animation”. Said frozen rebels include Badu (referred to as Badoula Oblongata), Monáe, and members of her Atlanta-based art collective Wondaland Arts Society — and when a couple of visitors chuck ‘Q.U.E.E.N’ on the record player, the subjects start to dance.

Monáe is her usual show-stealing pint-sized powerhouse, and the whole thing’s wrapped up in Wondaland’s stylised black and white — until Badu and her poodle turn up at 4:04 to add a shade of gold/fluff/brilliance. The booty does not, apparently, lie.

Also, it gives us an excuse to remind you all of what Monáe can do with her incredible feet: