The Soul Train Music Awards have aired annually since 1987, recognizing excellence in the R&B and Soul music. The awards are meant to recognize the best artists in African American music.
The Lady of Soul award has been handed out at the ceremony to the likes of Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, and Mariah Carey.
This year's winner of the prestigious award was NoN-biNarY singer Janelle Monáe, but she did not want to be considered the "Lady" of soul, even though she is a female.
To accommodate her, the awards scrapped the female-only award and renamed it "The Spirit of Soul Award."
(Note: there is still an award for best female artist of the year, for now, which was won by SZA).
Monáe's acceptance speech was full of the usual woke mumbo-jumbo but with a hint of something else too.
That "spirit" talk isn't something to gloss over. It's not layovers of African American spirituals or anything like that.
I'll let Monáe explain:
"I'm nonbinary, so I just don't see myself as a woman, solely. I feel all of my energy.
"I feel like God is so much bigger than the ‘he' or the ‘she.' If I am from God, I am everything. I am everything."
She sees herself as a god.
Random thought: Could the Ghostbusters zap her like that 8,000-year-old Hittite god?
Oddly enough, Gozer was written as a gender-fluid god in Ghostbusters.
Coincidence?
Anyway, sorry ladies.
It looks like you're out of the running for the Lady of Soul award. I'd say "better luck next time," but at the rate we're going, who knows if there will be anything left for women.
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