Brooklyn-born poet, musician and activist aja monet brings her quartet to ALICE for her first appearance at the venue. The evening centres on her latest album "the color of rain", a more experimental record that mixes jazz, soul, hip-hop and rhythm and blues.
She was raised in Brooklyn by Cuban and Jamaican parents and began writing poetry as a child. In 2007, at 19, she became the youngest poet to win the Grand Slam title at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York. Her 2018 poetry collection "My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter" earned a NAACP Image Award nomination, and her 2023 album "when the poems do what they do" was nominated for a Grammy.
Her ability to let words move in and out of music recalls Lonnie Holley, Gil Scott-Heron, Audre Lorde and the Beat Generation poets.