aja monet – elsewhere (feat. Meshell Ndegeocello & Georgia Anne Muldrow)

aja monet has announced her sophomore album The Color of Rain, due May 22 via drink sum wtr, and shared its lead single “elsewhere”, featuring Georgia Anne Muldrow, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Novena Carmel. The album follows her 2023 debut When the Poems Do What They Do, which earned a Grammy nomination in 2024. The Color of Rain is co-produced by Monet, Justin Brown, and Ndegeocello, with a live band conducted by Ndegeocello comprising Burniss Travis, Josh Johnson, Daniel Mintseris, Jermaine Paul, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Nico Segal.

“elsewhere” carries specific weight. Monet wrote it in response to the death of Sly Stone, and the backstory matters: Ndegeocello told her not to write something in memoriam but in homage. She did it overnight. Novena Carmel, Sly Stone’s daughter, joined alongside Georgia Anne Muldrow, both responding the same day she reached out. “The next day we started working on the song and it was like he was in the room with us,” Monet says. “Everything came together in divine timing. The song reminds me of our love for one another and the portal of possibility.” The track is a supple neo-soul groove, the rhythm loose and warm, the vocal contributions from Muldrow and Ndegeocello sitting alongside Monet’s spoken-word delivery without crowding it.

“elsewhere” holds together as a song despite being made under pressure, in grief, and in a short window — those are conditions that usually produce something raw but uneven. Monet is a Grammy-nominated surrealist blues poet who won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam at 19; this track is a good argument for why the “blues poet” designation earns its keep. The video, directed by Jesse Boykins III, extends the song’s warmth without overdetermining it.

The Color of Rain is shaping up to be one of the more significant records of the year, and “elsewhere” is the kind of single that makes you want the album sooner. Monet plays Carnegie Hall in New York on May 20, just ahead of the release.

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Tracklist:

1. Say It With Your Chest
2. Elsewhere (feat. Meshell Ndegeocello & Georgia Anne Muldrow)
3. Withness
4. Hollyweird
5. Skinfolk
6. For the Congo
7. I Came to the Poem
8. To Sister (feat. Ganavya & Brandee Younger)
9. I Know That I Don’t Know
10. Working Class Musicians
11. Love Is Chosing (feat. Mereba)
12. Song of Myself
13. Melting Clocks (feat. Mick Jenkins & Vic Mensa)
14. Every Media Minute
15. Indigo