Last weekend, Janelle Monáe premiered a teaser ahead of screenings of Marvel Studios’s Black Panther announcing her third album, Dirty Computer, the long-awaited follow-up to 2013’s Electric Lady. The release includes the album, due April 27, and an accompanying “Emotion Picture.” Today, Monáe released the first two singles from the project, “Make Me Feel” and “Django Jane,” with complementary music videos.
Directed by Alan Ferguson, the video for “Make Me Feel” affectionately nods to ’80s pop and funk, specifically to the late Prince, a significant influence on Monáe’s music. The song is brought to life in the vibrantly colored clip, which you can watch below:
“Django Jane” underscores Monáe’s ability to unleash a biting flow in a track that, according to a press release, “embraces contradictions as part of the beauty of individuality.” Helmed by Andrew Donoho and Chuck Lightning with additional “vagina monologue footage” directed by Lacey Duke, the video is ambitiously billed as a “powerful black girl magic womanifesto that celebrates the strength of black women and black culture while addressing the trials and tribulations of identity in the 21st Century”:
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