It was a bit of a shock see Janelle Monae’s Colgate smile on the cover of the Sunday Times Culture section last weekend. Here is a singer we’ve followed with interest since her 2005 debut on Big Boi’s Got Purp album where she contributed two tracks, the better of the two being ‘Lettin’ Go’, the ballad of a bored shop assistant dying for the weekend to begin. At a time when R&B amounted to a pack of weave-wearing, Vuitton-brandishing, lobster-eating vixens, Janelle was the sort of girl who you’d imagine made her own clothes and survived on a diet of starfish and coffee.

Janelle then dropped two tracks on the disappointing Idlewild soundtrack but it was with the release of an EP called Metropolis Suite 1 that she adopted her cosmic alter-ego that’s destined to take her to the stars. Cindi Mayweather is an android from some dystopian vision of the future. Living in a hellhole called Metropolis, she’s “an alien from outer space, a something-something-something without a race” as she shrieks on ‘Violet Starts Happy Hunting’. [In the larger scheme of things, Cindi has fallen in love with a humanoid, something that's strictly verboten in Metropolis, and her robot body is about to be decommissioned.]

On hearing the EP, I recall wanting to like it (isn’t that all too often the case with artists in whose success we have some vested interest – as confirmation of our own great taste). Nevertheless, it did have some good moments and Janelle was bringing the razzmatazz of the Broadway musical to a very solid concept EP. We were planning to publish an interview with Janelle in the first issue of SHOOK but even back then she was proving hard to get hold of. Next thing we hear she’s been signed by Puff Daddy, which seemed like career suicide at a time when Bad Boy’s talent radar amounted to signing Cassie. But fast-forward to 2010 and Ms Monae has an album out next week and a single, ‘Tightrope’ which has been clocking up hits on YouTube faster than the counter on a pinball machine.

‘Tightrope’ is the sort of infectious pop song that nobody but OutKast could have created. Underpinned by a stomping New Orleans rhythm and an upright bass, Janelle rap-sings a sort of tongue-twisting tirade of verbal virtuosity and infectious enthusiasm. The video, which seems to be filmed in an abandoned mental institution, showcases the performer’s stripes that Janelle has in abundance. In a 40s jive get-up with spats and a gangster tux, she does the gravity-defying ‘tightrope’ dance which is not just mesmerizing and instantly makes you want to “tip all on it”, but is also a whole lot more wholesome than ‘Getting Your Eagle On’.

But enough of Janelle for now, because this isn’t just about her. Yes, like every article written so far about her, Ms Monae’s persona Cindi Mayweather does resemble Ziggy Stardust, Sun Ra and George Clinton’s trips on the mothership. After all let’s not forget Clinton released Parlet, which were effectively Cindi Mayweather-type space-booty from Planet Funk.

But let’s give credit where credits due. Monae is just one of group of other female vocalists who have been blasting the R&B/soul idiom to new spaces and places. First off, Sy Smith who with her 2006 offering ‘The Syberspace Social’ was a kind of Barberella for the nappy soul generation. The album, featuring beats from Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Nicolay and James Poyser, while not exceptional, antedated Janelle’s Metropolis Suite by at least a year.

Then there’s Jazmine Sullivan whose Grammy-winning debut album seemed to have borrowed widely from Janelle Monae in many places, refusing the usual tropes of the R&B album – pyrotechnic ballads, and club tracks with syncopated hip-hop beats. Instead, Fearless sports classical influences on ‘Lions, Tigers and Bears’, the showtune ‘Switch!’ and space-jam of ‘Dream Big’ (over a montage of Art of Noise and Daft Punk).

It all goes to show that a little bit of imagination can go a long, long way, and R&B doesn’t need to plough the same old furrows, contrary to the retrogressive music industry law of what’s sold before will probably sell again.

Kelis is one R&B artist who never really fit in with all the others. Amazingly she found herself without a label after the lackluster Kelis Woz Ere in 2006. Last year Virgin even dared release a ‘Best of Kelis’ album as if her career was already over. She returned earlier this year with a new album which, like Janelle’s ‘Letting Go’, uses dance music as a foundation for her tracks. I’m not 100% convinced by much of it but, as usual she looks amazing in the videos and her electronic sound (using producers like David Guetta, Benny Benassi and Diplo) seems to be endearing her to more people than ever before.

Meanwhile, hopes are pinned on the likes of Janelle and Jazmine to ditch the old clichés (or at least rehash some original ones), and make some credible mainstream R&B once again. After all, it’s not exactly rocket science.