"After the weather, Janelle Monáe will be performing?!!!"- FOX 5 Atlanta

Greetings my loves!

So yeah, yesterday I performed on Fox5 Atlanta on the morning show, Good Day Atlanta! Thanks to all of you who watched!

It was crazy! I had to be there by 7 this morning and I only had 3 HOURS OF SLEEP, not complaining just reflecting!:-) And even though the beautiful and nice host kept calling me "Janae" they were all such cool people! Thanks 4 everything! There is even talks of them bringing us back!:-) I guess I am just excited because I know that I am not signed to a major and have not a song on the radio and got to perform on a news station, right after the weather! (hahahehahe) Seriously, I am highly gratified and extra humbled. (To see the interview and perfomance check out the link on my page or go to:

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=3F5987F4CABBB876ABC7E3A83F9D2D43?contentId=3586805&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

Also, I just came back from St. Kitts with Big Boi and that was a good experience! I got to perfom during his set. Thanks BIG!

I did VSHH! and "Call the Law" (Outkast Idlewild album).

The crowd? Well, let's just say I was stared at... No honestly, I was received pretty well for a crowd to be up at 3 a.m. (yes, it is so, we did not start til' almost 3 in the morning! Not complaining, just reflecting).:-) and never have heard "Violet Stars Happy Hunting!" at all. I only say that because their popular radio station was still playing Usher and Alicia Keys, "My Boo". So I get the feeling and I may be wrong, that they grasp on to music late or have a hard time letting go (no pun intended), which could be a good thing for artists.:-)

I was a bit frustrated with myself I must admit. I really wanted to jump extremely high off the stage, land, and pour water on the audience.:-) After my performance of "Call the Law", I looked down, realized how far of a jump it was and punked out.:-( Arrrggghh I was mad afterwards. Maybe I made a good decision because one of the dancers did such a cool flip off the stage, landed wrong and hurt is foot and ankle. He had to use a wheel chair at the airport on the way back to Atlanta. Who knows, maybe next time for me?:-/

On a better note, I got my first out-of-the-states interview with a guy from London! I was totally not expecting that. I got a chance to experience a real press room. A room of people all over the world lined up to interview you. It was very overwhelming at times. I believe I did pretty well in my interviews, I just hope somebody was and is inspired.

Good day world,

Jane.

Today was a "Good Day"!

Greetings earthlings,

Well, I thinks its been a little more than 2 days since we last spoke...but here we go.

For those who don't know, JM did Good Day Atlanta this morning and killed it of course. But before I get to that, let me back up a little bit.

I couldn't sleep at all last night, waaaaaayyyyy too many butterflies in the 'ol stomach. Why you ask? First the obvious, JM is about to do Good Day Atlanta! Let's keep in mind JM has no distribution deal and no song on the radio and she's about to do GOOD DAY ATLANTA!

Secondly, I was steadily thinking about today and hoping for nothing but positives. JM was in St. Kitts this past weekend and I knew she got in late and rehearsal still had to be done. So I was a little concerned about her and the band making it on time because we COULDN'T be late for this...remember, this is live TV. I decide to get out of the bed at 5am and send one last blast letting everybody know to tune in this morning, I then proceed to call JM at 5:30...no answer...5:40 no answer...not good! Then I call my fellow W.A.S. member Wolfmaster Stanklin and it sounds like he just rolled over, which means no one else is in motion...not good. It's 6am now and I need to hit the rode, so I leave with the hopes that everyone is getting ready and will be on time...remember, this is live TV.

While I'm driving I receive a text from JM saying that she is up...it's 6:25, now does that mean she just got up or had been up and just received my text? Panic mode is starting to penetrate my mind at this point, but I proceed to keep it moving towards the station.

I get there around 6:40. Wolfmaster Z calls me at 7am and says they're on the way...now are they REALLY on the way or trying to calm me down because they know where my mind is at this point? But...they make it inside at 7:20...halleujah!!! 1o minutes early...woohoo!

The interview and performance were a success! Special thanks to Joy Crump, Suchita and the whole FOX 5 Atlanta team for having Janelle on the show.

Also, a VERY special thanks to all the fans and supporters of JM and The W.A.S. that tuned in early this morning.

Signing off,
Lord Rico Rodriguez

Arithmetic For Playas Pt. II: The Rolls Royce Incident

PROLOGUE:

Okay, so you know how it goes playas.

My sista calls 'em Sara Jessica Parker moments. You know that Sex n the City where Carrie thinks she's lookin so fine during the fashion show....and then damn near breaks her ankle, falls out in her $10,000 dress on the runway.

Yeah, you know pride goes before the fall...LITERALLY.

Well...we at the W.A.S. had one of them......

ONCE UPON A TIME,

We were in Miami and our good friend loaned us his Rolls Royce Corniche to roll out in.

We're talking a white 1980 convertible with a maroon interior. A classic with only 43,000 miles on it. You already know. We couldn't even contain ourselves. It was too much.

But before we knew it, without warning or a flicker of lightning in the sky, everything that could go wrong...did go wrong. One second we were the kings and queens of Ocean Drive, and the next, well, as you know.... pride goes before a fall...LITERALLY.

Here's a small list of things that happened when we were riding on the top of the world:

1) A man who was rollerblading almost broke his back trying to spin and look at the car, and his rollerblading girlfriend almost rolled into the street breaking her neck and trying to see what was going on;

2) guys driving black Lamborghinis and yellow Ferraris nodded their heads as if to say DAMN, where do I get one of those...

3) an Indian guy handed a friend his camera, jumped in the street, and did a quick shuffle as he tried to take a picture with us cruising slowly past;

4) a girl named Luisa (that one of our illustrious party called "the most perfect girl in Miami") said she's on the way...even though she was tired from working all day, and it was already 1:00 in the morning, she was jumping in the shower and would see us in a second...she just "loves Rolls Royces, and can't wait to own one someday...";

5) men everywhere--and i'm talking ballas, shot callas, and billionaires with Rolexes and supermodels on each arm, all stopped in their tracks to deliver amazing new levels of HATERATION...I guess they had to grit their teeth and hate because their girls were breaking their necks with that "who's that?" grin...but damn....;

6) We got free ice cream, gigantic free slices of pepperoni pizza, free parking spaces at the trendiest spots in Miami, and for the first time in my life, everything in the world seemed free...



Now, for the fall...LITERALLY. Here's a small list of things that happened when we sank to new levels of low, and began frantically asking ourselves how low can this go?

1) I hug Luisa in the lobby of the Hotel Delano. Outside in a prime location in the circle drive sits the white Corniche. We look over to see some giggling gorgeous girls taking photos next to the car, rubbing it like it's Apollo, or some lost sacred stone. We laugh. We all walk over to the car. We jump in. And Nate Wonder turns the key. And nothing happens. No soft sweet purr. Nothing.

2) No, seriously, the car won't start.

3) We begin tapping the leather with our fingers, nervously licking our lips. This is a convertible. There's really nowhere to hide. And folks are walking by in their $2,000 dresses and pulling up next to us in their classic Ferraris. I don't think this is a good time for this.

4) NO, SERIOUSLY THE CAR WONT START. WTF?! IS HAPPENING...

5) Nate Wonder frantically asks the valet if they've done something to the car. Suddenly, none of them know how to speak English. But Nate's fluent in Spanish. So they suddenly switch from Spanish to another language that sounds like a cross between Russian and Korean. WTF?!

6) No one knows who parked the car. Of course, of course, it parked itself....

7) Nate decides to pop the car in neutral and start it that way. He pops the car in neutral and it promptly begins rolling backwards, headed toward the busy sidewalk and the dozens of Bentleys, Porsches, and limos cruising by slowly in the street.

8) Nate pumps the brakes. Nothing happens. If anything we roll faster.

9) We hit the wall. No, I'm serious. We hit the wall of the circle drive. And we sit there. Saying things like Oh shit, Oh shit over and over.

7) Luisa laughs. We all laugh. We begin ducking, embarrassed, scared, not sure what to do. We feel like criminals. We just wrecked a classic automobile. There are circles in hell for that. Bums on the sidewalk join in: they point at us and laugh. We're beyond nervous now. We're going to hell. And the car won't start.

8) The valets run over like paramedics. They check the back of the car: no damage, they claim. Yeah right, we feel like dying cancer patients: doctor, just tell me the truth. The valets (who suddenly now speak perfect English!) decide to jump the car: we just need to wait 15 minutes for the cables....15 MINUTES! For some reason, I wonder if Andy Warhol is here somewhere, giggling with his Punked camera crew....



9) Cables arrive! They pop the hood. And a Scion pulls up next to us. A Paris Hilton-type walking by says, "Are you serious? You're gonna jump a Rolls with a Scion?" I answer "Yep."

10) While a valet guy is fiddling with the hood, the HORN STARTS TO BLOW. NOT BLOW-- BLARE!!-- AND IT WONT STOP.

11) Folks start to run out of the hotel. The hotel manager, guests, club people. People flick us off, glare at us, begin throwing things at us from their hotel windows. And there we are like little frantic roaches on a china plate. Ducking and hiding in a fancy car. WITH A HORN THAT'S BLARING NONSTOP AT FULL BLAST AT FOUR IN THE MORNING.

12) People on the street rolling by in their coupes and convertibles begin laughing and blowing their horns in unison. I notice odd harmonies in the horn blasts. Maybe we could put together an auto doo wop group of some sort...

13) We close the hood to make the noise a little quieter. Then frantically realize we can just pull the wires to the horn and stop the racket. Of course, this is the moment when Nate realizes that "the silver thing, the silver thing!" is now conveniently missing. I guess the silver thing is the lever we need to pop the hood back up. Great. I look at Luisa and smile. And the horn seems to get even louder.

14) I ask Luisa if she's having fun yet. She smiles and says yes. I try to believe her.

A Rush of Wonder to the Soul

I've been thinking my way through this blog post for a little while now.

Trying to figure out a way to tell the world how exciting the last few weeks have been, and how much we at Wondaland have accomplished.

How much fun it was to be breaking shit onstage again, terrifying folks in my tuxedo, opening for Janelle Monae. How fun it was releasing product, seeing folks from coast to coast enjoying this jamming ass music!

But more than anything, I'd like to say thank you for listening, believing in Janelle Monae, believing in Deep Cotton, believing in the Wondaland Arts Society, and the power of music to change the world.


VSHH has been added to 30,000 MySpace pages and counting. And at allmusic.com they're arguing about whether or not this independently released song could be the next "Crazy" or "Hey Ya."

And we know, more than anything, we owe this success to you, the fans--those of you that believe, come here, jam the songs, and read this everyday!

Thanks for everything.

We got more goodies on the way.

We promise.

And thanks to my fellow Wondaland Arts Society members.

A job well done.


--c. lightning

A Virgin in the Blog Community

Greetings,

Lord Disassembler here. Well, this is my very first blog ever, hence the "virgin" title. I never thought that I had anything to say that would interest readers. But Chuck Lightning informed me that what I do everyday for The W.A.S. and Janelle Monae is interesting enough. So here I go.

First off, my name is George "Rico" Rodriguez aka Lord Disassembler. I have been blessed with the opportunity to manage Janelle Monae and I am also a member of the Wondaland Arts Society. My role is to create and manage opportunities for Janelle Monae that will advance her career to the highest level possible. On a smaller scale, I'm also the alarm clock, reminder, scheduler, water getter, and the one with the answers. (at least supposed to have the answers ;)
Today was the interview and photo shoot for The Fader magazine. Everything went great, we got some really good shots and the interview went great as well. I will let you know when the issue is available. We also had a meeting with a company in regards to some distribution avenues. That went well, we'll see what happens.

Well, now that you know a little about me, let me tell you about a couple of things that have bothered me lately.

1. The Sopranos series finale!

Are you serious? I have been a loyal watcher for 7 long seasons, been through push backs and having to watch previous seasons because I almost forgot what the hell was going on, to end with a black screen! For those who know, The W.A.S. were in Miami, which means I drove 10 hours back to Atlanta for a silent black screen. I thought my satellite went out or something, then the credits pop up like knives in my back. Unbelievable. Enough about that.

2. Arbitrary phone calls.

Now I love the people and would love to talk to all of you, but my number is available for business purposes only. I got a call the day of the Studio 900 show from someone asking for directions to the venue. I almost dropped the phone! You all can only imagine what goes on during show day. There is setup, sound checks, guest list requests and a number of other things that would be a little more of a priority than giving directions. I tried to handle it cool and collective but quickly advised them to go to mapquest and that I hope to see them at the show....thank you and god bless. And that's not the first and I'm sure won't be the last "are you serious" phone call.

Well, that concludes my first blog, that wasn't so hard. I will be coming back daily...or every two days to share with you the crazy world of management in the music industry and what else has bothered me. Until then...happy trails!

Lord Rico

The W.A.S. in Miami

The W.A.S. is in Miami right now. Janelle Monae tore the house down last night at a place called the Bohemian Room... Afterwards there was partying. We see you Chowski! You too Black Betty!

(Check out the pic of Lightning actin UP. Chuck's steal is in the photos too.)