Joel Foley, Journal #7

     Monae is trying to tell the tale of a robotic girl from the future who has to deal with a society that forbids many rights to androids. This is especially evident in her first song "March of the Wolfmasters" where the android girl falls in love with a human and is hunted down with chainsaws and daggers as punishment. The narrative is set in a futuristic city that is very cruel and stratified in its social system, androids seem to occupy the very bottom of the social pyramid  The literal purpose of this narrative is to tell the story of an android girl who is hunted down for her forbidden love and the story of her experiences being hunted. But the meaning behind the hunted girl seems to suggest the purpose is actually to expose the social stratification that punishes the lower social classes like androids. Towards the end of the album she calls upon the president to show mercy on the lower classes by freeing up money at first but then calls for basic rights when she asks him to lead the people to a better place like Moses and therefore suggests that the president can end the androids persecution. This album is part of the urban alternative movement style of music based upon the setting of a city and the obvious deviation from other musical formats of today. It seems to fit in with opera more than anything because it tells the tale of a tragic love story through song with very little instrumental influence in the flow of the song. Monae's gender affects the album because she is a woman and is able to tell the tale from a woman's perspective in a world that is much more unforgiving than our own. Her race could affect the music because interracial relationships were considered criminal at one point just as the human/android relationship is considered a high crime. Both were punishable by death. These characteristics make me feel that the music is definitely more of a social commentary than a piece written simply for entertainment.
     Mark Edward Nero wrote a review on this album and compared Monae's work to a space opera that follows a girl hunted because of her forbidden love. Nero also noted the appeal to social reform in the song "Mr. President" when Monae sings of hard economic times and the impact on lower classes.
      Nero, Mark Edward. Review: Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase).About.com. Retrieved on March 2, 2010.