Music: Janelle Monae

Onstage in March at the Varsity Theater, Janelle Monae was high-concept, high-energy and high-hair. Her performance was an enrapturing and ambitious multimedia mélange of a Fritz Lang movie, a Philip K. Dick novel, a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, a Frida Kahlo painting and a James Bond soundtrack with a little Queen, Prince, James Brown, David Bowie, Judy Garland, OutKast and the B-52's thrown in.

Yet on the phone Monday, Monae was polite, monotone and businesslike -- more like she was applying for a job that she didn't really want than giving an interview to promote her performance next Thursday at First Avenue opening for her friends, Georgia cult rockers Of Montreal.

Monae, 24, always dreams big. She has ever since she was a kid in Kansas City with her sights set on Broadway.

"I have the right to my imagination," said Monae, an OutKast protégée who was signed by P. Diddy in 2008. "And music is my weapon for those who try to get in my way."

Her "ArchAndroid" is the most extravagant and wildly eclectic recording of 2010, a 69-minute concept album about a 28th-century android who is sent back to the 21st century to liberate Metropolis from oppressors. If you don't dig the sci-fi story, you can still groove to the music. "The ArchAndroid" has received glow-in-the-dark reviews.

"I'm very grateful, very humbled," the soft-spoken Monae said of the rave reaction. "I haven't gotten too high off the praises and accolades, and I haven't gotten too low off of any opinions or critiques."

One of the more remarkable aspects of the album is Monae's authoritative grasp of so many styles of music -- from funk and folk to classical and bossa nova. The musical diversity, she said, "just comes natural. It's not for the sake of being different or for any political reasons. I also feel for my generation, it's important that a lot of the music that has come before me -- and definitely has inspired me -- remains preserved."

With her art, Monae is trying to help young women "find their space in this world. I think it's definitely important that we celebrate each other's differences as it pertains to music and art and all those things. It opens up more doors, and people become more comfortable with themselves and not feeling like there isn't a place for them."

If that sounds a little bit like Lady Gaga preaching, well, they seem to be kindred spirits from different planets.

"I like Lady Gaga," Monae said. "I appreciate her theatrics. I'm a theater student. I appreciate her being able to play the piano and her standing up to bring people together. What she is doing for the gay community is a really, really noble thing. People are happy to have her to be their voice. There are so many different people that need a voice. That's what I'm doing. I'm creating a voice and individuality and telling people 'it's OK to celebrate our differences.' I'm not about catering to a red state or a blue state; I'm about creating a purple state where we all can live."