Janelle Monáe is getting down with a Jackson 5 twist.
The songstress-turned-actress has recorded “Hum Along and Dance (Gotta Get Down)” for The Get Down soundtrack.
“The city’s on fire,” she sings. “Smoke is burning my eyes / I’ve got one more chance / I need you to come along / And just hum along / And now dance.”
“The Get Down,” starring Jaden Smith, Shameik Moore, Justice Smith, Jimmy Smits, and Giancarlo Esposito, arrives on Netflix on Friday. Its soundtrack, which Nas executive produced, hits Apple Music exclusively the same day.
After watching the trailer, Monáe said she was intrigued by the Baz Luhrmann-directed period piece about the birth of hip-hop.
“It was something I wanted to be a part of, telling our stories, making sure that you got the real true pioneers,” she told Beats 1. “I’m glad that Nas is helping executive produce this, Grandmaster Flash, and all these people that started hip-hop.”
“Hum Along” was, as Janelle explained, “inspired by the Jackson 5.”
“I just basically put Janelle Monáe on it,” she added. “But I wanted to keep the essence of Jackson 5. Michael [Jackson] is one of my heroes.”
This isn’t it for Monáe, who is set to co-star in the upcoming film Hidden Figures. “[It’s] about the three black women who were directly responsible for getting John Glenn, the first American into orbit, into space,” she said. “My role, I become the first African American engineer in NASA. We did all the coding, we did all the work to help America win the space race in the 1960s, but we never got the credit. This is their story.”