Janelle Monae Cracks A “Smile” For ‘Billboard’ Mashup Monday
The one-year anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death is coming up this week (June 25), and so our favorite android Janelle Monae’s Billboard Mashup Monday cover of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”—a song Jermaine Jackson sang at his brother’s funeral last summer—seems all the more poignant. “Emotionally, I’ve been connected to this song for quite sometime,” says Monae before explaining that it was the Stevie Wonder version she first latched onto. “It’s one of those classic standards, it’s been sung by a lot of the greats, Stevie Wonder to Nat King Cole to Judy Garland to Frank Sinatra.” Watch after the jump.
What a brilliant, bluesy way to kick off the summer with a little heightened emotion!
Monae is currently on tour with Erykah Badu. Tomorrow night the pair play Humphrey’s in San Diego before moving on to Phoenix and then Las Vegas. The “Tightrope” singer is also on the bills for the Lilith Fair, Outside Lands and Voodoo Music festivals this summer.
