Janelle Monáe to Headline the American Jazz Museum's Festival on Memorial Day Weekend

Janelle Monáe will be a headliner at a three-day festival hosted by the American Jazz Museum on Memorial Day weekend.

Cheptoo Kositany-Buckner, the institution’s Executive Director, recently shared the big news with a group of Rotarians.  At the 10:00 mark in the embedded video, Kositany-Buckner reveals that “one of the people who are acting in Hidden Figures” will perform at the revived event.  She's correct to characterize Monáe as “a huge, huge headliner.”

The native of Kansas City, Kansas, hasn’t appeared in the area since a concert at the Uptown Theater on November 15, 2013.  The show attracted a less-than-capacity audience of 1,800, but Monáe’s star has risen further in the last three years. 

Monáe may not perform jazz, but the era in which jazz artists headlined popular, ticketed “jazz” festivals in the United States is over.