Ep.57: Excavating Spirituality w/ Poet aja monet; Author Emma Warren; Visual Artists Senga Nengudi Fittz & Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees

Surrealist Blues poet aja monet is a storyteller and community organizer whose work conveys themes of joy, Black resistance and hope. Inspired by the immense creativity and use of language in Negritude poetry, aja’s spoken word and written poetry is rooted in tradition and the revolutionary spirit of those who paved the way before her, including Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez and Amiri Baraka.

Inspired by her community organizing in Florida, aja’s upcoming collection of poetry, Florida Water, is an ode to the ways in which water can rinse, reflect and unravel us.

aja’s music releases include the album when poems do what they do, and singles give my regards to Brooklyn, and the devil you know. Her debut collection of published poetry, My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter, features poems on revolution, womanhood, and love. In New York, Chrystal meets with aja to find out more.

Journalist and author Emma Warren has spent decades documenting music and culture. Her latest book Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through the Dance Floor combines the social, personal and cultural history of dance and movement.

Ranging from Reggae Dancehalls, Youth Club Discos, Irish Shebeens and the Chicago house and Detroit techno movement, Emma’s guiding question asks what can dance tell us about ourselves, individually and collectively.

Her published works include Make Some Space: Tuning Into Total Refreshment Centre, an inside glimpse into London’s Total Refreshment Centre, a club and accidental incubator for London’s Jazz Renaissance, and Steam Down Or How Things Began, a celebration of an influential weekly jam in Deptford.

In addition to her writing, Emma has hosted a monthly radio show on Worldwide FM, highlighting creatives and stories through music and culture. Emma speaks with Chrystal and Tamika about the importance of music and dance as acts of celebration, resistance and community.

Artist and educator Senga Nengudi Fittz’s work invites the viewer to question the structures of race, gender and ethnicity which shape our lives. Senga’s practice centres our shared experiences, rituals and collective energies. Senga is known for her performance art and sculpture which combine the use of found objects and choreographed dance. An example of this is the artwork R.S.V.P which interrogated the traumas and transformations endured by the human body.

Her most recent self-titled exhibition at the Dia Art Foundation in New York, presented her range of sculptures and installations between the years 1969 to 2020.

In conversation with Tamika and long-time fellow artist collaborator Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees, Senga describes the important communal elements of creativity and the humor and connections with the spirit world.

Artist and writer Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees’ creative practice is informed by a close relationship with nature rooted in her African, Native American and European identities and culture. Her works are expressions of the connections between the sacred and the spiritual with the environments we exist in.

Her works include performance pieces, installations, writing, and divination guidance. A recent work of Kaylynn’s titled Falling into Language: A Travelogue is a visual manifestation of the ceremonies around her Native American and African heritage. Kaylynn connects others to their spiritual awakenings through A Practice for Living, A Living Practice, offering divination, coaching and retreats.

In conversation with Tamika, Senga Nengudi Fittz and Kaylynn discuss their recent collaborative performance piece Tying & Un-Tying at the MoMA in New York, and the rich self-expression to be found in spirituality.

Tamika Abaka-Wood is a cultural anthropologist, creative strategist, and founder of Dial An Ancestor, an ongoing participatory audio spiritual hotline which actively shares wisdom, knowledge and stories with an emphasis on ancestral connections beyond DNA. Tamika is also the founder of Plantain Papers, an independent annual publication which is an ode to plantain, and the communities who eat it.

Music Used in This Podcast by aja monet Courtesy of drink sum wtr label:

Further links:

Just Above Midtown (JAM) creative space which centered African American creatives in the 1970s and 80s
A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray

Front Page Image: aja monet by Fanny Chu