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This summer, in June 2023, Janelle Mon\xe1e put out her fourth album, The Age of Pleasure. Listening to it made me want to revisit her Song Exploder episode, from 2018. One thing on Song Exploder that I personally love is when we get to hear an artist\u2019s raw voice memo, from the moment when they\u2019re first coming up with a song idea. This episode has one of my all-time favorites.

Janelle Mon\xe1e is an award-winning musician and actress who released her first record in 2007. She\u2019s been nominated for multiple Grammys, and she starred in the Oscar films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. In April 2018, she released her third album, Dirty Computer, which includes this song, \u201cSo Afraid.\u201d In this episode, Janelle Mon\xe1e takes \u201cSo Afraid\u201d apart,\xa0to explain how she built it, step by step\u2014beginning with a trip to the dentist.

For more, visit songexploder.net/janelle-monae.