aja monet announces new album “the color of rain”
Photo Credit: Daniel N. Johnson
Surrealist blues poet aja monet announces her new album, the color of rain, out May 22 via drink sum wtr. Marking the announcement is the release of “elsewhere,” a shimmering and soulful album highlight accompanied by a video directed by Jesse Boykins III and featuring contributions from Georgia Anne Muldrow, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Novena Carmel.
“elsewhere” serves as an homage to Sly Stone. While in the studio working on the album, aja monet and her collaborators learned of Stone’s passing, and Meshell Ndegeocello encouraged monet to write something not in memoriam, but in tribute. The song began taking shape the very next day, carrying with it a sense of presence and divine timing. Both Novena Carmel and Georgia Anne Muldrow responded to monet that same day and joined the session, helping bring the track to life. The result is a luminous meditation on love, connection, and the portal of possibility.
At the crux of rising fascism, aja monet offers a waking-dream intervention amid the sinister realities of contemporary life. A prompt to look up at the sky within, the color of rain, co-produced by monet, Justin Brown, and Meshell Ndegeocello, is an interweaving of familiar genres forged beyond category or definition. As the album unfolds, each poem and song shifts fluidly through jazz, soul, hip-hop, and rhythm and blues, creating a surreal and expansive listening experience. At its core, the color of rain reminds listeners that poetry predates the very blueprints of genre. Rather than delivering poetry over fixed arrangements, monet works in close conversation with the music, shaping phrasing, cadence, and tone as each composition evolves.
the color of rain marks an evolution from the intimate, live-café energy of aja monet’s GRAMMY-nominated debut album, when the poems do what they do. While honoring the legacy and lineage of the Black Arts Movement, this sophomore release also serves as a conjuring—an invitation to experiment, explore, and delve inward. If the first album felt like a gentle altar call, the second arrives as an impassioned summons: a meditation on resistance, discernment, and the power of artistic expression. If the pen is the sword, music sharpens the blade.
Live instrumentation grounds the record, while its spirit emerges through warped sonics, unexpected turns, and delicate sonic investigations in both pre- and post-production. Meshell Ndegeocello helps guide an illustrious cast of musicians, while Justin Brown further amplifies the album’s prismatic vision. In true community-building fashion, monet gathers a remarkable ensemble of contributors, including Burniss Travis, Josh Johnson, Daniel Mintseris, Jermaine Paul, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Nico Segal, alongside featured appearances from Mick Jenkins and Vic Mensa.
aja monet brings her singular live show to Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York City on May 20, 2026 with more tour dates to be announced.
WATCH THE “ELSEWHERE” VIDEO
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 chosing (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.
WEBSITE | SUBSTACK | INSTAGRAM | X | FACEBOOK
BANDCAMP | YOUTUBE | SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC
