Collection: aja monet

aja monet could have easily titled her debut album “when the poets do what they do,” because she understands poems not as words but as life-force. Poems issue from breath, body, memory, experience, imagination, spirits, and the faint whispers of ancestors. This is what makes the poem so powerful and dangerous, like violets pushing through concrete to kiss the sun, or unarmed people, arms locked, chanting and singing, forcing armies to retreat.

aja monet is that unstoppable violet beckoned by sun. She is the prophet of a people united. She is Jamaica. Cuba. Brooklyn. A daughter and sister, teacher and healer. A warrior who wields words like a bouquet of hand grenades, a soothing salve, silk sheets, and an offering to Yemaya—often in the same breath. -- Robin D. G. Kelley

Joined by musicians Christian Scott (trumpet), Marcus Gilmore and more, when the poems do what they do - out now via drink sum wtr - is insistent and unrelenting. Songs are reminiscent of jazz club virtuosity and melee, others of a healing balm in gilead. When you reach the end, you’re left with the feeling you get when heartbroken; gravity barreling back down to earth, sopping wet with tears, out of breath, overcome with love, despair, and all too aware that this is over far too soon. When the poems do what they do, they do absolutely everything.

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