POET OF THE PEOPLE

aja monet is reviving the Black Arts Movement's tradition of pairing poetry with live music-and drawing Gen Z to her shows.

- PAULA MEJÍA

ON THE FIRST brisk night of fall in Los Angeles, the self-described surrealist blues poet aja monet emerges onstage at the El Rey Theatre, an art deco movie house turned concert venue, to rapturous applause. Flanked by a double bassist, a saxophonist, a keyboard player, and a drummer, monet stares out in disbelief at the packed room. "I can't believe y'all came," she says to the crowd of roughly 500 people, visibly humbled.

Moments later, she kicks off the show with a poem titled "why my love?" which wends its way through a sumptuous jazz groove. About midway through the song, monet begins to cry out "why" on loop, evoking a distinctly different emotion with each repetition, oscillating from care to frustration to elation. With nary a phone outside a pocket, the room of mostly twentysomethings collectively holds its breath. One woman places her hand over her heart and leaves it there. In that moment, monet transforms into a rock star. As her friend and collaborator V (formerly Eve Ensler) describes it, to see monet perform is to be in the presence of someone "channeling something."

Only a handful of artists can bring together club kids, businessmen, and librarian types, on a chilly Wednes day no less, to stand reverentially as a poet leads a jazz band in electrifying spoken-word numbers. Fewer still can make a concert feel like a genuinely communal affair-a rare sight in a city that, by design, makes chance encounters and spontaneity difficult to come by. But monet, a New York City native who calls LA home, is uniquely situated to meet our divisive moment.