20 bands to not miss at CMJ 2008

Janelle Monáe

Janelle Monáe's Afropunk roots and faux-hawk pompadour exists purely in a funkified futurama of her own mind. When Sean "Diddy" Combs' It Girl wonder unloaded her intergalactic hip-hop opus, "Metropolis, Suite 1: The Chase" on CPUs last August, music journos pretty much instantly dusted off their "female version of Prince" blurbs.

It's a win-win for Diddy's label, Bad Boy Entertainment. Long the stomping ground for his vanity show Making the Band's blinged-out Wal-Mart fascism, Bad Boy now boasts Ms. Monáe's genre-spanning R&B cabaret in its canon. (Notorious B.I.G. can roll back over in his grave.) On stage, Monáe's a wild-eyed prophet, bursting with raw magnetism. One thing is for certain: the movement has officially begun. With Chester French, Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears and The Filthy Youth. TICKETS.