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Two follow-up albums, 2013’s The Electric Lady and 2018’s Dirty Computer, continued the trend with more critical acclaim, awards nominations, and comparisons to artists such as Prince, Janet Jackson, and David Bowie. Like those artists, Monáe naturally gravitated toward acting roles as well. Her first feature film was a voice acting performance in 2014’s Rio 2, but she followed that up with appearances in two of 2016’s biggest, most prestigious films, Moonlight and Hidden Figures. In the former, she portrayed Teresa, the girlfriend of Juan (Mahershala Ali), a drug dealer who was more than his profession. The two took on paternal roles to the film’s central character, and Ali won an Oscar for his performance. In Hidden Figures, Monáe played Mary Jackson, a NASA mathematician and (later) an aerospace engineer.
Supporting roles in films like Robert Zemeckis’ Welcome to Marwan (2018), the biographical film about the life of Harriet Tubman, Harriet (2019), and The Glorias (2020), ab out Gloria Steinman, followed, but Monáe was giving a chance to lead a film in 2020’s Antebellum. The horror film follows a 21st century African-American woman played by Monáe who wakes to find herself mysteriously in a Southern slave plantation from which she must escape. While the film received mixed reviews, Monáe’s performance was widely considered to be one of the best aspects of the film. That same year, Monáe appeared in Season 2 of the Amazon Prime series Homecoming as lead character Jackie, a veteran who awakes one morning with no memory of her past life. Once again, critics were impressed with the range of Monáe’s performance.
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As of now, there aren’t any films and TV shows on Monáe’s docket for 2023, but according to Atlantic Records’ CEO Craig Kallman, we might be receiving the follow-up to Dirty Computer. No matter what Monáe does next, you can expect impressive things. Monáe’s talents are like an onion, but certainly not a glass one.
