Janelle Monáe & Billy Porter: Dual Winners, Best TV Musical Performance
For the Opening Number, 92nd Academy Awards ®
JANELLE MONÁE
@janellemonae
A singer, songwriter, producer, and performer from Kansas City, Kansas, Monáe’s innovative style melds a redefined pop sensibility with an extraordinary mash-up of soul, funk, and rock n’ roll. Her debut album The ArchAndroid was released to widespread acclaim, earning her multiple Grammy nominations, and was deemed the top album of 2010 by The Associated Press, The Guardian, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Monáe was also a recipient of the 2011 ASCAP Vanguard Award, and was included in the first-ever “Women Who Rock” exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame earlier that year.
A dynamic performer and artistic entrepreneur, Monáe her own record label, The Wondaland Arts Society, and has performed worldwide with artistic legends such as Stevie Wonder and Prince. In 2013, she launched her second studio album, The Electric Lady. The first official single off the album, Q.U.E.E.N., quickly racked-up 10,000,000 views on YouTube. “Yoga,” the second single from Monae’s Wondaland Records collective EP, The Eephus, accumulated nearly 5,000,000 views on YouTube in its first month. Her third solo album, Dirty Computer, received a 2019 Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.
As an actress, she has costarred in the Oscar ©-winning drama Moonlight, the also-acclaimed period drama Hidden Figures and the second season of the Amazon thriller Homecoming. She can currently be seen on the screen in the horror film Antebellum.
Visit her fan page here.
Source: WME Speakers.
BILLY PORTER
@thebillyporter
Before landing his Dorian Award-winning role on the multi-Dorian Award-winning FX drama Pose, Billy Porter was best known for starring as “Lola” in the smash hit Broadway musical Kinky Boots, for which he won the 2013 Drama Desk and Tony® Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. Other Broadway acting credits include the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Shuffle Along, directed by George C. Wolfe, Miss Saigon, Five Guys Named Moe, Grease (all original cast), Smokey Joe’s Café and Dreamgirls (20th anniversary revival). His one-man show, Ghetto Superstar: The Man That I Am, was nominated for a 2005 GLAAD Media Award.
Porter’s original song “Time” has been featured twice on the television dancing contest So You Think You Can Dance. His concert credits include performing as the opening act for Rosie O’Donnell and Aretha Franklin at Carnegie Hall, singing with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Philly Pops, and as soloist for a political fundraiser for President Bill Clinton.
As a director, Porter has helmed revivals of George C. Wolfe’s plays The Colored Museum and Top Dog/Underdog, as well as a critically acclaimed recreation of The Wiz. He also conceived the musical revue Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Music of Stevie Wonder, which starred Chaka Khan in the spring of 2002. In addition, Porter conceived and directed Being Alive, a musical celebration that aligns the cannons of Stephen Sondheim and William Shakespeare and combines them with the soulful musical styles of the African-American experience. He is also an NAACP Theatre Award winner for Best Direction of a Musical for his production of Once On This Island at Reprise Theatre Company.
And as a recording artist, Porter’s solo albums include his first CD, Untitled, on A&M records and his sophomore album, At the Corner of Broadway + Soul – LIVE. Another album, Billy’s Back on Broadway, was released in 2014. Porter’s most recent album, The Soul of Richard Rodgers, was released on Sony Masterworks. Porter’s voice can also be heard on the albums A Very Rosie Christmas, Jim
Brickman’s Destiny (a top ten AC hit), Grease (revival cast album) and more.
Porter is a graduate of The Professional Program in Screenwriting at UCLA and is an adjunct professor at his alma mater Carnegie Mellon University’s School Of Drama, where he has directed productions of Company and Letters From ‘Nam. He carries an honorary doctorate from Washington & Jefferson College.
Source: FX Networks
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