Aja Monet’s The Color of the Rain leads the 22 May release-eve radar

Aja Monet’s The Color of the Rain arrives tomorrow, 22 May, making 21 May a useful release-eve moment for readers to get ready. The Brooklyn-born poet and activist follows her 2023 album When the Poems Do What They Do with a new LP that continues to blur spoken word, jazz, blues, political memory and live-band improvisation.

The album is due via Drink Sum Wtr and is co-produced with Justin Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello, with collaborators including Mick Jenkins, Vic Mensa, Brandee Younger, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Novena Carmel and others.

Monet’s strength is that she does not treat poetry as something placed on top of music. Her work moves like a conversation between voice, rhythm, breath and history. The Color of the Rain looks set to deepen that hybrid form, bringing surreal blues-poetry and jazz-rooted composition into a record that should matter to both music and literary audiences.

For an indie digest, this is one of the strongest 21 May preview items because it widens the idea of independent music beyond bands and albums into performance, speech, activism and improvisation. Source: https://pitchfork.com/news/aja-monet-new-album-the-color-of-rain ; Additional source: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/goings-on/the-surrealist-blues-poet-aja-monets-jazzy-new-album