Church of Sound: Aja Monet

Church of Sound: Aja Monet
Fri 15 November 2024
Stage time / 7:30pm

We are delighted to welcome Aja Monet at the Church of Sound on the 15th of November as part of EFG London Jazz Festival!
Aja Monet’s poems are a work of gravity. They are a fundamental for which all things are attracted, considered upon and enacted towards. Her work moves, constantly, between origin and outcome, allowing them to exist in converse. In her debut album when the poems do what they do, we glimpse her indefatigable commitment to speak. Those thematic origins of this album at times center around Black resistance, love and the inexhaustible quest for joy.
As a community organizer, surrealist blues poet and teacher aja monet moves between mediums, each one an element to her writing. Here, organizing and activism aren’t the point, they’re the process. The endgame is liberation and the poems, the music, and the art serve as the scribe of the time. Building off a tradition rooted in oratorical facility aja is the conduit for her predecessors to channel through. At any given time you’ll find the revolutionary spirit of Audre Lorde and the Last Poets, you’ll feel June Jordan, Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez and even the expressive ephemerality of a passing blue note. All appearing as generational trees from which these poems fruit.
“Poet, spoken word artist, political activist - however you want to label her, Aja Monet shines. She's already responsible for what was possibly my favourite live performance of 2024 so far (at We Out Here festival this summer) so the idea of seeing what she's going to bring to the LJF is a deeply exciting prospect."
Dom Servini, Jazz FM Recommends 2024
“Jazz and spoken word have always been great bedfellows. Slam winning Brookly surrealist poet Aja Monet visits the capital on November 15 at The Church Of Sound, St James the Great in Lower Clapton Road on the east side. Last year she released a captivating debut album called When The Poems Do What They Do, a statement of resistance and comment on our times, backed musically by Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott). I love those who aren't afraid to use their platform to make social comment and connect ideas and emotions. Head on over there and be assured of a night of inspiration and music truly in the now.”
Chris Phillips. Jazz FM Recommends 2024

