“My bookshelf is my medicine cabinet... I’d give everyone my library if I could,” says surrealist blues poet Aja Monet, inviting Service95 into her Los Angeles home, where books and records from the writers and musicians who continue to guide her work line the shelves and walls.
Aja’s space serves as her creative sanctuary; a place where poetry, music and memory converge. It is her studio, her refuge and her place of worship; where the noise of the outside world falls away, leaving room for writing, studying and absorbing herself in the artists that inspire her.
Every corner of her home speaks to the lineage that shaped her. The writer, musician and activist became the youngest winner of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam at 19. Her acclaimed debut album, When The Poems Do What They Do, which is rooted in Black resistance, love and the pursuit of joy, won her a Grammy nomination. For Aja, making this art begins with studying those who came before.
“The American literary landscape has yet to contend with the contribution of Black poets and what they have actually offered us,” she says. “There's so much that has yet to be studied or named.”
As she moves through her apartment, she reels off the names of literary greats who have shaped her: Jayne Cortez, Ntozake Shange, Sonia Sanchez, Gil Scott-Heron. Their words and melodies live alongside her own, informing a body of work that has resonated with audiences around the world.
Her poetry collection Florida Water, released last year, extends that same lineage of study into her own writing. Her new album, The Color Of Rain, released in May, continues the conversation in sound. Its poems and compositions reflect on the political realities of today, drawing on surrealism – a movement she describes as an intentional artistic response to the rise of fascism throughout history. For Aja, surrealism is a language of resistance, capable of imagining worlds beyond oppression.
Throughout our time with Aja, one idea returns again and again: great art begins with deep study. She reminds us that creativity is built in conversation with those who came before, encouraging us to surround ourselves with their work, remain curious and, perhaps most importantly, let the books find us.
Keep watching below to discover her creative sanctuary for yourself, from the artists whose work she keeps close, to the writing room that forms the heart of her practice.
Aja headlines Pitchfork Music Festival London this November.
