“Who’s got time for poems when the world’s on fire?”
Surrealist blues poet and community organizer aja monet performs selections from her debut album, when the poems do what they do, recorded with a roster of esteemed musicians including Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Samora Pinderhughes, and Lonnie Holley. Centered around themes of Black resistance and joy, her performances channel the legacy of jazz and blues greats and the revolutionary spirit of poets such as Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Sonia Sanchez.
aja was the youngest poet to ever win the title of Grand Slam Champion at the Nuyorican Poets Café, and went on to coedit Chorus: A Literary Mixtape alongside poet-actor-director Saul Williams, found the Smoke Signals music collective in Miami, and publish her first full-length book of poetry, My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter, with Haymarket Books.
