aja monet: the color of rain

“Say it with your chest” is used as a taunt but is transformed into a personal spell. monet reframes the chest as an engine ready to fire, the cavity as “darling darkness,” and the heart as a tenderly cupped firefly, softening the machismo of the phrase. The expression returns at the end of her verse, delivered gently as drums and keys surround her voice, turning it into a mantra for staying true to self. Her second album presents fluid, genre-shifting spoken-word performances over jazz, soul, and electronic arrangements that move between calm and chaos. The production pushes outward rather than enclosing the poem, with layered rhythms and background vocals in constant conversation, creating warm, expanding, slightly noisy “rooms” under construction. The album extends a syncretic approach rooted in earlier Black Arts Movement influences.

"“Say it with your chest,” aja monet commands in the opening seconds of the color of rain. The phrase, popularized by an old Kevin Hart bit, tends to be a taunt, but monet freaks it. With growing vim, she likens a chest to an engine waiting to be fired, the cavity within to a “darling darkness,” the heart to a tenderly cupped firefly-each metaphor diluting the machismo of the saying."

"By the time monet repeats the expression at the end of her verse, chanting it gently as pitter-pattering drums and hushed keys subsume her voice, “say it with your chest” is more spell than jeer, a mantra for staying true to self."

"Spoken word recordings often try to approximate the spaces where poetry is performed: Voices are centered, music and audience chatter pushed to the edge of the mix. The poem feels enclosed. the color of rain rejects that standard. These restless arrangements-produced by monet, polymath bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, and virtuoso drummer Justin Brown with assists from trumpeter Nico Segal and engineer Chris Connors-push outward."

"The instrumentals nudge, stretch, and press, the layered rhythms and background vocals in constant conversation with monet's slick poetics. If songs are rooms, these are under construction: warm, expanding, a little noisy. monet builds on the syncretic style she introduced on when the poems do what they do."

Read at Pitchfork