We're only 20 minutes into Janelle Monáe's Glastonbury debut and she's already morphed into a robot, karate-chopped a monk to the floor and painted a picture of a model hourglass woman with "LOVE" scrawled across her thighs in green paint. She hasn't spoken yet, and she won't (much) for the rest of the show. Instead she'll deliver track after track of immaculately choreographed fun. And it is a delivery: there's no way this degree of co-ordination – with her 14-strong backing band bouncing and weaving in perfect synchrony – is spontaneous. But then, it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be big and fearsome enough to leave an impression.
Her debut album, ArchAndroid (Suites II and III), was the Guardian's album of 2010. Live, the biggest songs on that set (Cold War, Dance or Die) could have been swamped by her ambition. Instead, they're performed with a conviction that lets them sit up alongside her festival-friendly cover of the Jackson Five's I Want You Back.
Monáe's mentor and labelmate Big Boi (of OutKast) is headlining the same stage immediately afterwards, but she doesn't invite him on to perform the rap he recorded on her biggest single, Tightrope. She doesn't need his star power. The girl that Hey Ya! built has come good. All on her own.
