You're listening to Comedy Central, Janelle money to welcome back to the Daily Show. Wow, That's what I said every time I see you. This is huge, this is fun, this is fun. We're back you know the people, and I'm happy to have you here because, like when I talked to you over Zoom, I don't get like for those who don't know Jenelle, when I always looks like this, like just always know, you are easily one of the most like glamorous, stylish people I have ever come across
in my life. Like you looked like how we're just supposed to dress as a thing. You are so kind. I totally paid him to say, you know, we're in the pandemic. He was trying to make some extra money. I was my side. Hustle was complimenting genomone, Welcome back to the show. How how is life? How's how's everything treating it? Because you are one of the few people I know who just seems to excel in everything you do. Music, you excel and it's your own type of music, it's
your own vibe. It's different. It's not easy. You know. In the movies you excel everything hidden figures. I mean, now you're gonna be in the New Knives out. It's just like your life is a dream and now a book that's already got start reviews, Well, tell it to my therapist because clearly, clearly there's a lot of things that I have to fix. According to them, Um, I'm amazing. Yeah, I'm amazing, man, I'm gonna say that. I love and I'll say this. I used to kind of just say that,
you know, because is it how you doing? What I'm doing? Great? How you do? But I am doing I am like in the most I don't have to prove anything space that I've ever been in in my life. Um. Yeah. And it took me a while to get there because you know, as public people, we try to inspire people with our words. But I don't feel like I was really living what I was saying. Oh I like that. I wasn't really believing in it myself. I was saying it. It was helping other people, But I had to do
some deep healing during the pandemic. I was dealing with a lot of rejection and abandonment issues just from like my childhood, things that I had just kind of kept in me, and they were just coming to the service and I think one of the things that the pandemic has done is forced us all to go in state. Yeah, and so I'm at this place where like I'm ready to celebrate. If we're not talking about vacations, I don't want to talk. If we're not planning a vacation, I
don't It's just like, what are we doing. We are supposed to be living our best lives. I'm young, I'm creative, No, seriously, like, what's supposed to be living our Earth's experience in the best way. And I think when I first started my career, I was really serious, like I have to prove a point. I have to prove that just because I look like this, I could do this type of news music, I can say these things, I can talk about science fiction. I had a lot to prove um. But now, man, I'm floating.
We feel it. I love that what's beautiful? You don't. It's it's interesting because you start to feel that with artists when they hit that groove, you know, because I think everyone goes through the phase of you have to prove you know, because you understand that definitely, because because initially you're going will I keep the job? Do I belong here there's impostor syndrome. Over time, you develop a
trust yourself, the audience, your experience is. The book feels like the perfect representation of that for me, because I knew that you liked science fiction. You know, I mean like you know, your your your albums for instance, your music videos. You you've never been afraid to say, like I I like science fiction. But now you wrote a book of short stories and I was like, oh no, Genelman loves science. You co wrote with with some amazing authors.
Let's let's start with that. How did you even begin this process of going, you know what, I want to write like a future book. So this um short story collection is from the soil of Dirty Computer, my album that came out and I released a film with that, and I knew I had more to say. Sat down in the pandemic. Excuse me, look at me. Don't even
know how dates I'm from the future. Sorry, I sat down in the Pandemic and I finally said that there's more, and um, you know, I was on mushrooms and I just came up with all of these thought experiments, you know, where I was like, what if there was this black woman she was the memory keeper of the city. She knew all of the people's memories before they were cleaned, before their identities were wiped clean, and she wants to fall in love. What does that mean when you want
to fall in love but you know everybody's secrets. Oh, that's the first one that means. So that's the first one is called the first story. Imagine that first you already like the first story? Yeah? And then and then what if you lived in New York and there was a room that you could go into You didn't even know existed, but when you went into this room, time stopped. So yeah, so you could. It kind of speaks to
time poverty in a sense. You know, black and brown folks, we've been spending our life fighting right to be included all these things. What if you had an opportunity to steal time, to get time back? Would you rest? Would you show the community this place? How? How would you if you could get time back? How would you use it? I love how you've used the stories in the book to delve into topics that sometimes are too dense or to like, you know, they fraught with politics and they
don't let us just think about them. For instance, the first story, you talked about it's in the future. This this woman, she's going all these memories. How does she trust people? How does she know people? All I found myself thinking. I was like, man, I feel like that's what social media is slowly slipping us into. Is people have now lived the entire life online. Now in a generation where people have gone from my baby steps all the way through I have existed online. So now do
I have any anonymity? Can I Can I write my own story without other people writing it from my posts? Yeah? I mean I think that, you know, social media is a virtual reality. It's a whole another world. Like people create and we curate the type of people that we are. I think being human, in my opinion, is performative. I'm performing a version of what I think Jenelle on a should be. I tell you, I'm from the future. It
gets deep, it gets deep. It's all feedback. We're getting feedback from how we should be, how what we've seen we didn't like. And it's like, ah, now I'm this person because of that information. But that's a whole another story. Um. I think you're right. I think that there is some gathering done there with our memory and with this book I'm just challenging everybody to be their own memory librarian.
Like I started to look at my life and I started to think about, man I was I didn't, I wasn't in the moment in so many ways, I was so in the future here for like the majority of my career, I was in the future. And so how can I create memories now? Like our memories are the things that determine the quality of our life. Without them, who are we? You know, when you take away somebody's identity and who they are is just like that that was their life's experience, you know. Yeah, And I want
to shout out Elijah Don Johnson. I wrote The Memory Librarian with her, and I wrote this, this entire collection, each short story. I partnered with a writer that I well friends who were writers because I knew, like, okay, with there's a story called never Mind and there is uh an incredible writer by the name of Danny Lore and non binary, and they are just really really good when it comes to action, like they're doing some stuff this James Bond graphic novel, and I was like, okay,
Danny would be great for that. And then Eve l Ewing I did Time Box with um Shari Renee Thomas. I did time Box altered with Johanka Delgado. I did save changes. Imagine if you could go back and there was this device and you wanted to just like, I don't want to give too much away, but these stories are just incredible and then, um, you know, I said, uh Alia down Johnson. I just want to make sure I shout them out because this is a super innovative
way of releasing a book. It really is. You know, you know what I enjoyed about it is when you go from story to story, what you've done is there is the common thread of Janelle Money. I can feel the future you in all these stories and the way you think. But then it's infused with like different elements
from all of the different rites. You know, if you if you know Eve's writing and her stuff, you can feel it in some of the dialogue and some of the moments if you know the author becomes So it's almost like you've created the first book that has like features on it. Yeah, it's like a it's like a compilation out it's normal. So they feel so different from story to story, and yet they have a common thread.
I can see why it's getting rave reviews. I can see like, now the question is are you going to turn this into I know it started with the album that's a movie, and then now there's a book. But now this book seems like it's begging to be turned into a TV show? You think so? Do you think it could be a TV show? Every time I was reading this, I was like, Okay, guys, everybody watching, listen, we need to make that doesn't make it out. We're gonna make it that and thank you so much. Everybody
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