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At the crux of rising fascism, aja monet offers a waking-dream intervention, amid the sinister reality of contemporary events. A prompt to look up at the sky within, the color of rain, co-produced by monet, Justin Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello, is an imbrication of familiar genres forged beyond category or definition. As one strides through the sequence of poems, each song shifts between musical perceptions of jazz, soul, hip hop, rhythm and blues. Surrealism at its finest, a marvelous unleashing of the mind. the color of rain reminds us that poetry predates the very blueprints of genre. Rather than delivering poetry over fixed arrangements, aja works in close conversation with the music, adjusting phrasing, cadence, and tone as the compositions shift.
New Album The Color Of Rain Out Today Via Drink Sum Wtr
Shares “Working Class Musicians” Animated Video Announces 2026 Tour Dates
the color of rain is an evolution from the intimate, live-café energy of aja monet’s GRAMMY-nominated debut album, when the poems do what they do. While she nods at the Black Arts Movement’s legacy and lineage, this sophomore album is a conjure the experiment and explore the interior. If the first album was a gentle altar call, then the second is an impassioned call to bare arms, a definitive guide to choose your weapon, wisely. If the pen is the sword, music sharpens or blunts the blade.
Live instrumentation anchors the record, but its spirit surfaces in pre- and post- production with warped sonics, wayward voltas, and delicate investigations. Meshell Ndegecello conducts the illustrious cast of musicians while Justin Brown bolsters the prismatic vision. In true community organizing fashion, aja knows how to bring artists together, recruiting meaningful musical contributions from Burniss Travis, Josh Johnson, Daniel Mintseris, Jermaine Paul, Ambrose Akinmusire and Nico Segal, as well as features by Mick Jenkins and Vic Mensa.
WATCH THE PREVIOUSLY RELEASED VIDEO FOR
“HOLLYWEIRD,”
“ELSEWHERE,
& “MELTING CLOCKS”
Tour Dates:
05/23 – Atlanta, GA @ Atlanta Jazz Festival
05/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ Getty Museum
06/01 – San Francisco, CA @ Chapel
07/04 – Montréal, QC @ Montreal Jazz Festival
07/05 – Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall
07/30 – San Diego, CA @ UC San Diego
08/08 – San Jose, CA @ San Jose Jazz Festival
08/19 – Geneva, CH @ Scène Ella Fitzgerald
08/22 – Dorset, UK @ We Out Here Festival
08/26 – Istanbul, TR @ Kommunite Social
08/28 – Cella Monte, IT @ Jazz:Re:Found
08/29 – Nantes, FR @ RDV de l’Erdre
08/30 – Paris, FR @ Festival Jazz à la Villette
10/22 – Melbourne, AU @ Melbourne Jazz Festival
Track List:
1. say it with your chest
2. elsewhere (feat. Meshell Ndegeocello & Georgia Anne Muldrow)
3. withness
4. hollyweird
5. skinfolk
6. for the Congo
7. i came to the poem
8. to sister (feat. Ganavya & Brandee Younger)
9. i know that i don’t know
10. working class musicians
11. love is a choosing (feat. Mereba)
12. song of myself
13. melting clocks (feat. Mick Jenkins & Vic Mensa)
14. every media minute
15. indigo
About aja monet:
aja monet is a Surrealist Blues Poet in the business of goosebumps and heart-gut-telling truths. Her poems are harmolodic, vulnerable, and insurgent. As the youngest recipient of the Nuyorican Grand Slam Poetry title, she first cut her teeth in New York City’s Lower East Side poetry clubs and bars, honing her voice and craft on the storied stages of a burgeoning grassroots poetry movement. She follows in the long legacy and tradition of poets organizing in social movements for change. Her collaborative spirit has seen her shape and shift culture alongside internationally renowned artists, scholars, activists, and organizers.
aja’s first full collection of poems, my mother was a freedom fighter (2017), is a powerful tribute to women who embody freedom, earning a nomination for a NAACP Image Award for Poetry. Her debut poetry album, when the poems do what they do , was nominated for a Grammy Best Spoken Word Poetry Album in 2024. The album explores themes of resistance, love, and the inexhaustible quest for joy. As a poet and touring bandleader, she has performed at festivals, concert halls, and theaters across the globe including but not limited to, the Guggenheim, Lincoln Center, Newport Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Fremantle Biennele and the Barbican Centre to name a few.
aja monet’s awards include the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award for Poetry (2019), the Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award (2024), The Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award (2024), the EBONY 100 Artist In Residence Award, and the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Vanguard Award (2025). She also serves as the Artistic Creative Director for V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. In 2022, she created “VOICES,” an audio play amplifying the stories of Black women across the diaspora and the African continent.
aja monet’s most recent book of poems inspired by several years living and organizing in South Florida is called, florida water on Haymarket Books.
The post aja monet Releases ‘the color of rain’ via Drink Sum Wtr & Shares “working class musicians” Animated Video appeared first on The Hype Magazine.
