MUSIC

Reliant Arena presents Bruno Mars & Janelle Monae - Hooligans in Wondaland.  Don't miss Bruno Mars and his Hooligans with Janelle Monae and her Androids at Reliant Arena, Wednesday, May 18th, 2011.

Bruno Mars and Janelle Monáe took it old-school at the Grammys, and judging from the poster for their just-announced North American co-headlining tour, the pair plan to offer up plenty more retro-soul goodness when they hit the road beginning in May.

The poster for the Hooligans in Wondaland Tour looks like an old paste-up for a James Brown-era all-star show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, in keeping with both artists' back to the future vibe. Joining them on the trek will be British singer/ rapper Plan B and blue-eyed retro-soul singer Mayer Hawthorne. The two-month outing is slated to kick off on May 4 with a show at New York's Roseland Ballroom and wind up on June 15 at Comerica Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona.

Mars won the Best Male Pop Vocal Performance award at the Grammys on Sunday night for his breakthrough hit "Just the Way You Are." The pair earned a standing ovation at the end of their set, which included Mars' doo-wop remix of "Grenade" and Monáe's crowd-surfing run through her "Cold War."

According to Billboard, Mars is in Los Angeles working on the video for "The Lazy Song," the next single from his smash debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans. He'll hang around for a bit to perform on the pregame show at Sunday night's NBA All-Star Game.

It's better if you don't understand; just listen and have a good time. That's the response Bruno Mars will give you with a smile when asked to describe his sound and music. He would much rather sing, perform, and write his songs than talk about them, but that is becoming more and more unavoidable these days. It might seem that Mars appeared out of nowhere, co-writing, producing and performing on B.o.B's #1 "Nothin' On You" followed by Travie McCoy's chart-climbing "Billionaire", but he makes one thing clear: "It's not an overnight success".

Mars is a multitalented singer, songwriter, producer and musician who feels most at home when he's performing. Born to a musical family in Honolulu, Hawaii, he was practically raised on the stage. His father, a Latin percussionist from Brooklyn, organized a Vegas-style revue that featured the entire family, including his mother, a talented vocalist. When a four-year-old Mars observed his family performing Motown hits, doo-wop medleys and impersonations for enthusiastic crowds all over his native Waikiki Beach, "I was jealous!" says Mars with a laugh. "My dad put me on stage and I remember singing an Elvis song and that was it. Ever since that moment, I've been addicted."

Rich in diverse music from all over the globe, Honolulu was an exciting hometown for the budding singer/songwriter. On one end of the spectrum, his home was filled with the 1950s classics that were his father's passion. Meanwhile, the city is rich in traditional sounds, including reggae, rock and folk music, as well as the latest pop hits. "Hawaii is basically in the middle of the world, so you're exposed to every type of music over there," explains Mars.

As soon as he graduated high school, Mars left Hawaii for Los Angeles with dreams of launching his career as a performer. Those dreams got put on hold, however, when The Smeezingtons, the songwriting/production team he founded with Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine, suddenly took off. The pair has crafted major hits for a diverse roster of talent, including Flo Rida's "Right Round", Travie McCoy's "Billionaire", Brandy's "Long Distance" and K'Naan's "Waving Flags", which is the theme song for the upcoming World Cup.

Mars describes his time behind the scenes as important to his development as an artist. "I realized that you have to go into this industry as an artist with a clear vision and understanding of who you are. Being so young when I was first signed, I never really had a sense of who I wanted to be. Now things are really working out because everything that I'm singing, writing and composing is really me."

On the heels of "Nothin' on You" and "Billionaire" and as a preview of what's to come from Bruno Mars, Elektra Records is releasing a 4-song EP aptly titled "It's Better If You Don't Understand". The title is taken from a lyric to "The Other Side"; one of the songs included that features Cee-Lo Green and re-teams Mars with B.o.B. The song depicts the musician's current routine. "It's basically a story of the lifestyle you end up living as an artist and how I would describe it to a girl I just met to try and explain, but in the end… It's better if you don't understand."

When asked to describe the music he's about to release Mars says "it's hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There's no tricks. It's honesty with big melodies. And I'm going to be singing the s— out of them." The collection of songs on the EP are written from various real-life experiences, where Mars blends his buoyant voice with purposefully simple production. All of the songs are produced and written with his Smeezingtons partner Philip Lawrence.

Although he's incredibly proud of the recordings, Mars feels the best way to experience the sound is to see him perform live with his band. "That is what I'm most excited for – taking these songs and traveling them around the world." The only place he would rather be than in the recording studio, is with his band on stage – where he grew up. "I think people are really going to gravitate towards the live show. We turn it into a party."

She’s been called “a different kind of diva” by Vogue Magazine and “a true visionary… one of the most important signings of my career” by Sean “Diddy” Combs. For singer, songwriter, and high funkstress Janelle Monáe, however, the impetus remains the same as it’s been since before her Grammy-nominated debut EP Metropolis, Suite I: The Chase captured the imaginations of fans and fellow artists. As she readies her first full-length LP, The ArchAndroid, her focus remains on stirring your soul, moving your feet and simply, creating good music.

The ArchAndroid blends the talents of executive producers Nate Wonder, Chuck Lightning, Janelle Monáe and Sean “Diddy” Combs, with co-executive production by Big Boi of Outkast. ““Musically, The ArchAndroid is an epic James Bond film in outer space,” describes Monáe, “in terms of influences it’s just all the things I love— scores for films like Goldfinger mixed with albums I adore such as Stevie’s Music of my Mind, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, and jamming experimental hip hop stuff like Stankonia.”

The ArchAndroid is a soaring, orchestral trip enlivened with blockbuster vocals, mysterious imagery, and notes of 60s pop and jazz. “It’s an organic symphonic sound,” says Monáe, who enlisted the talents of the Wondaland ArchOchestra to realize her sound. Elaborate orchestral arrangements were composed and conducted by Nate “Rocket” Wonder and Roman GianArthur for Wondaland Productions. Featured guests include the legendary Big Boi of OutKast, renowned poet Saul Williams, the psychedelic dance-punk troupe Of Montreal and punk prophets Deep Cotton.

The album realizes the next chapter in the story of Cindi Mayweather, the heroine of Monáe’s debut album Metropolis. She has been sent to free the citizens of Metropolis from the Great Divide, a secret society using time travel to suppress freedom and love throughout the ages. “It’s said that when the ArchAndroid returns, it will mean freedom for the android community,” explains Monáe. “Cindi Mayweather realizes that she is indeed the ArchAndroid.”

If this all sounds like the plot of a great movie, the Wondaland crew views each album as the creation of an “emotion picture.” Says Monáe, “The ArchAndroid is very inspiring for me. In terms of writing the music, we wanted the story to be very compelling, but we also wanted to make sure that the journey we’re taking people on makes them feel like they’re watching one big emotion picture.” The writing process was incredibly intense for everyone involved. “The music would sometimes wake us up in our sleep. We’d record melodies on our phone. Sometimes we’d stay up for days at a time just writing this music. The story and visions coming to us were so great that we wanted this music to capture everything we were feeling inside.”

“Over the last year and a half when we were recording the ArchAndroid I went through a very transformative period in my life,” explains Monáe, who has spent the time between albums traveling the world on tour. She’s joined artists No Doubt, Paramore and Erykah Badu on dates in various cities around the globe, including Istanbul, Berlin, Moscow and New York. She completed the album back home in Atlanta at Wondaland Studios and a strange haunted asylum for super-powered savants called The Palace of the Dogs. “The less said about that, the better—although I did like the Musiquarium [the recording studio] there, and I’ve got to thank Max Stellings [the asylum director] for allowing me to release these recordings to the world.”

“Overall, this music came from various corners of the world—from Turkey to Prague to Atlanta—places we were on tour. While recording, we’d experiment with different sounds. Once we became engulfed in the sound, we all had an emotional connection to the album. It has definitely transformed my way of thinking, the way that I approach the stage and overall, my life.”

The album’s first single, “Tightrope”, featuring Outkast’s Big Boi, speaks to her commitment to remain focused on what matters: the music. “As an artist it’s very important to always keep my balance and not get too high or too low about things. Even when I’m getting lots of positive reinforcement, to remain calm and enjoy the journey.” A funky party jam emboldened by the “classy brass” of Wondaland’s horn section, “Tightrope” features Monáe’s honeyed vocals reminding her listeners, and perhaps herself, “When you get elevated/ they love it or they hate/ keep dancing on them haters.” Monáe also describes the recording process as a lot of fun. “We were up dancing on couches, jumping around, having jam sessions for hours and hours, just really enjoying ourselves,” she says with a laugh. “We let our free spirits come out and just listened to our hearts and the melodies that were within.” Now that the album is poised to release, she is focusing her talents on a deluxe graphic novel version of the album called The Red Book, as well as Dance Or Die, the eighteen-chapter ArchAndroid music video collection.

The journey of the past two years, she says, has taught her to “embrace the things that make me unique and to continue being an even bigger agent of change, especially as an artist.” Her hope is that listeners, inspired by the album, “embrace their own superpowers and become the voice of change, the hero—or The ArchAndroid—in their own communities.”