Aja Monet: The musical ups and downs of my life

Aja Monet shares the pivotal moments that have made her the artist she is today.

Talking to Nemone, who combines her roles of DJ and qualified psychotherapist, Aja, discusses her latest album The Colour Of Rain, working with Meshell Ndegeocello, and how her early exposure to poetry slams inspired her journey into writing. With tracks from Lauryn Hill, Sade and Alice Coltrane.

Self-described as a surrealist blues poet, a moniker that doesn’t begin to describe her many talents, Aja Monet’s books include ‘The Black Unicorn Sings’ (2010), and she co-authored ‘Chorus; a Literary Mixtape’ in 2012 with Saul Williams. Her poetry book ‘My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter’ was the result of her time spent exploring her Cuban past then followed her first album ‘When the Poems Do What They Do’ in 2023 and earlier this year she unleashed the hugely affecting second LP ‘The Colour of Rain’ described as a waking dream intervention.

In this series Nemone also talks in depth to musicians Mark Oliver Everett of Eels, Julia Jacklin and James Ellis Ford.