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. Her most recent book of poems, inspired by several years living and organizing in South Florida, is called florida water (2025) and was released on Haymarket Books. Both books earned 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 and the Fremantle Biennale to name a few. As the 2025 Artist in Residence at the EFG London Jazz Festival, she was invited to give a headline performance at the Barbican Centre.
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.
Her sophomore studio album, the color of rain, will be released May 22, 2026 via drink sum wtr. Co-produced by monet, Justin Brown, and Meshell Ndegeocello, the color of rain is an imbrication of familiar genres forged beyond category or definition. As one stride’s through the sequence of poms, each song shifts between musical perceptions of jazz, soul, hip hop, rhythm and blues. Surrealism at it’s 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.
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 to 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.