Backed by a live band, the spoken-word artist pushes further into surrealist blues poetry. In 2007, aja monet became the youngest-ever Grand Slam Champion at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the fabled Lower East Side incubator for artists straddling the boundaries between slam poetry, soul, and hip-hop since the 1970s. In the years since, the Brooklyn-born poet established herself as a star on the spoken-word circuit and released a series of poetry collections, including Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, a collaboration with Saul Williams. But in 2023, monet officially stepped into the role of blues bandleader with her debut album when the poems do what they do, delivering intimate spoken-word explorations of community, injustice, and her New York home over jazz arrangements and the sounds of the street. That album’s 2026 follow-up, the color of rain, pushes further into monet’s surrealist blues poetry with an alternately dreamy and dystopian dispatch from our surreal and stifling world. Backed by a live band conducted by Meshell Ndegeocello, which comprises Burniss Travis, Josh Johnson, Daniel Mintseris, Jermaine Paul, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Nico Segal, monet doomscrolls past news of war, greed, and corruption and wonders how to stay present and protect her soul. Step one: Put down the phone and touch grass, as advocated on “elsewhere,” a funky homage to the late Sly Stone. Step two: Reject the man-made concept of time, as on “melting clocks,” featuring Mick Jenkins, VIC MENSA, and Josh Lane. Step three: Commit yourself fully to your passions, in the mode of “say it with your chest,” on which monet advises: “Whatever touches your heart/A future inevitable as hurt/Let it wind through you/Be fiercely undone/Brave and bellowing/Elbow, ankle, shoulder your way/Will it as so.”