AJA MONET - The Color Of Rain

Slam poetry and jazz music, spirituality and rhythmic sinuousness, corrosive lyrics and refined sounds, hip-hop and soul: Aja Monet's second album has all of this, and more besides. "The Color Of Rain" is not just a record, but also an atypical, at times surreal blend of psychedelia, jazz, black music and words, delivered with a beguiling musicality and an incisiveness that goes hand in hand with the invectives hurled at the current American system.

On "The Color Of Rain" words become music and music becomes word. Compared to the debut, Aja Monet's new album has the merit of focusing more on the music, allowing the lyrics to dig deeper. The themes are identity, malaise, femininity, but there are no slogans or semantic shortcuts. Monet recounts everyday exhaustion with hypnotic jazz-soul sounds on the splendid "Elsewhere" and tackles the painful theme of workplace exploitation with a whirling carousel of voices, percussion and drums reminiscent of Kip Hanrahan ("For The Congo").
It's a decidedly more ambitious and exploratory album, this second offspring of the American artist, harsh and cutting in its invectives against the star-system that stir the tightrope-walking punk–funk sounds of the incendiary "Hollyweird", and incredibly tender and poetic on "Love Is A Choosing". "The Color Of Rain" is a learned, atypical project: Aja Monet reworks the ideas of the 1970s jazz-beat scene, looks back to Gil Scott-Heron and Stevie Wonder, and assimilates and absorbs both the avant-jazz of Matana Roberts and the modern soul of Meshell Ndegeocello (here acting as both musician and co-producer).

Blues and psychedelic surrealism steeped in hip-hop ("Melting Clocks"), minimalist extremism ("I Came To The Poem") and outgoing funk-jazz weaves ("Working Class Musician") alternate across the palette of colors and shades that Aja Monet lays out with surprising eclecticism and a vocal versatility that captivates and keeps the listener hooked. Despite this, the album's tone remains placid and gentle: qualities that shine through on the splendid closing pages of "Indigo", inviting the listener to hit repeat right away, a move that will reveal further lyrical ("Skinfolk") and musical ("I Know That I Don't Know", "Song Of Myself") ideas of rare depth and beauty.

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22/06/2026