The fledgling art of hologram performance is usually used to breathe new life into performers that have since departed – remember when a freakishly real Tupac joined Dre and Snoop onstage at Coachella in 2012? Neither M.I.A. or Janelle Monae are dead, but that didn't stop the two of them from teaming up to perform together holographically last night in two performances on the East and West Coast – Monae from a stage in L.A and M.I.A. from New York.

Here's a taster of their cover of M.I.A.'s "Bad Girls": 

"I wish I were in the audience because I'm sure it looked cooler from the audience, but it felt great," Monae said after finishing her 40-minute set with M.I.A.'s hologram. "I felt M.I.A.'s spirit up there."

We're not sure that the event sprang too many surprises – it's sponsored by Audi, after all – but musicians are no strangers to hologram performance, even if it does sometimes lead to incredibly weird results. 

Anyone remember Mariah Carey performing in T-Mobile sponsored concerts Germany, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Poland simultaneously? Who knew there was such demand for Mimi over in Eastern Europe?