BET and MTV will air Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer short film ahead of album release

Janelle Monáe heralded the arrival of her third studio album, Dirty Computer, with a teaser for an accompanying “emotion picture” featuring Afrofuturist themes and her pal Tessa Thompson. The clip has whet the appetite for the 44-minute sci-fi short, just as her gorgeous videos for the singles “Make Me Feel” and “Pynk” have made fans anxious for the release of Dirty Computer. But in a recent profile in The New York Times, the Electric Lady artist revealed just how complementary all these videos are; apparently, the lush scenes we see in “Make Me Feel” and “Pynk” are memories from the intertwined lives of Monáe and Thompson’s characters. These are the memories that are being expunged from the minds of those deemed “deviants” in the artist’s dystopian film, which BET and MTV have just announced they’re airing throughout the day on April 26.

In a press release, the networks teased the story of Dirty Computer: An Emotion Picture By Janelle Monáe, which centers on a “young woman named Jane 57821 (Janelle Monáe), who is living in a totalitarian near-future society where citizens are referred to as ‘computers.’” The movie explores “humanity and what truly happens to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when mind and machines merge, and when the government chooses fear over freedom.”

Dirty Computer drops April 27.