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The themes on surrealist blues poet aja monet’s 2024 debut album when the poems do what they do centre around Black resistance, love, and the inexhaustible quest for joy. The songs are insistent and unrelenting, with some reminiscent of jazz club virtuosity and melee while others serve as a healing balm, moving like a call to intercessory prayer. A 2024 GRAMMY nominee for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album, aja is a conduit for her oratorical predecessors. 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. She cut her teeth within the walls of the legendary Nuyorican Poets Café, where in 2007, at age 19, she became the youngest Grand Slam Champion in the venue’s history. Since then, her work has continuously found new depths and new resonances. aja monet is a griot, a storyteller, a chronicler, and your grandmother telling you about her first love all at once. These aren’t poems for poets, but poems for everyone. A woman of letters and storm, aja monet’s poems do not roar in pentameter, but rather in storm surge, because “who’s got time for poems when the world is on fire?!?!”
She’s joined by Ben Williams (bass), Logan Richardson (sax), Justin Brown (drums), and Javier Santiago (keys).
Refund Policy: No Refunds (tickets can be transferred to others if needed)
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Performance Works - Granville Island, 1218 Cartwright St, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Tickets
