She has been in a lot of public eye as an R&B singer, songwriter, dancer, music video director, choreographer, and fashion designer. Her sultry voice, sexy dancing moves, and edgy looks on the red carpet are well-known. At this year’s Vanity Fair Oscar party, she wore a sheer dark suit with a gold bra. It was a unique Thom Browne suit that was worn at New York Fashion Week in February. She adds a bit of the dramatic to everything.
While Taylor does something completely different in the movie “A Thousand and One,” Here, she plays Inez, a woman who lost her parents when she was young and is having a hard time getting her life back on track after leaving Rikers Island. She takes her six-year-old son Terry out of New York City’s bad foster care system so she can be a better parent.
The movie, which is set in gentrifying Harlem from the 1990s to the early 2000s, shows Inez as she really is: a single Black mother trying to make a good life for Terry while holding the weight of the city on her shoulders. Taylor was born and raised in Harlem. This is A.V. Rockwell’s first full-length movie. It won the grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Manohla Dargis, a film writer for The New York Times, wrote in a notebook from the festival that Taylor was “terrific” for her performance with no extras.