aja monet – melting clocks
Surrealist blues poet, aja monet, releases “melting clocks (feat. Mick Jenkins and Vic Mensa),” the latest single from her recently announced new album the color of rain, due May 22nd on drink sum wtr.
Additionally, monet announces a 2026 summer tour that includes shows in New York at Carnegie Hall and Los Angeles at the Getty Museum. Monet’s singular live show is not to be missed.
On “melting clocks,” monet straddles the world between that which makes sense and that of which our senses are tested. We don’t have to look far for the shattered ground that is paved of the illogical and magical. The track, which nods to Dali only in name, boasts a tempo that darts, transports, and moves as if time itself were being questioned. This work makes us wonder about what we know to be true and stirs us to lean into the mystical unknown. The song extends with clever lyrical offerings from Mick Jenkins, Vic Mensa, and Josh Lane.
“So much of our lives is dictated to us by the construction of a man-made clock. We ration parcels of our lives away and negotiate our values based on what we give time to. ‘melting clocks’ is a time-travel art piece. A song to question our relationship to time and practice presence,” monet explains.
At the crux of rising fascism, aja monet offers a waking-dream intervention, amid the sinister reality of contemporary events. A prompt to look up at the sky within, the color of rain, co-produced by monet, Justin Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello, is an imbrication of familiar genres forged beyond category or definition. As one strides through the sequence of poems, each song shifts between musical perceptions of jazz, soul, hip hop, rhythm and blues. Surrealism at its 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.
Tour Dates:
05/20 – New York City, NY @ Carnegie Hall
05/23 – Atlanta, GA @ Atlanta Jazz Festival
05/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ Getty Museum
06/01 – San Francisco, CA @ Chapel
07/04 – Montréal, QC @ Montreal Jazz Festival
07/05 – Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall
07/30 – San Diego, CA @ UC San Diego
08/08 – San Jose, CA @ San Jose Jazz Festival
08/19 – Geneva, CH @ Scène Ella Fitzgerald
08/22 – Dorset, UK @ We Out Here Festival
08/26 – Istanbul, TR @ Kommunite Social
08/28 – Cella Monte, IT @ Jazz:Re:Found
08/29 – Nantes, FR @ RDV de l’Erdre
08/30 – Paris, FR @ Festival Jazz à la Villette
#ajamonet