shraf's house

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aja monet - every media minute | cool songs (and how i found em) #19

too much religion, not enough god...

ash.

Jun 14, 2026

the song: aja monet - “every media minute” [ Spotify | Apple Music]

The deeper my appreciation for music becomes, the less I listen for lyrics. Don’t get me wrong, I love words and reading but I’m seeking a feeling. Lyrics are, of course, a vital part of the whole but they don’t need to sink in consciously on first listen. It’s usually when a song demands repeat listens that I’m able to untangle the impact of its words.

I’ve been moving a mile-a-minute for the last few weeks. I came back from a relaxing vacation to a week of 10-hour work days before spending the last 10 days in NYC where I DJd, danced and/or worked pretty much non-stop. Regardless of happenings in my personal life, the steady stream of bad news, fascist leaders, genocidal death cults, natural disasters and our own non-consenting complicity in it all remains constant. In the social media age it’s akin to a white-noise machine — simultaneously omnipresent and ephemeral.

On Monday, I found myself heading to Times Square to see the fruits of my recent labor (in the form of a billboard) just hours before Game 3 of the NBA Finals at MSG. A game that would be attended by New York’s least favorite “New Yorker,” creating additional unease (and security).

For my subway journey, I decided to try out the color of rain, the latest album from acclaimed poet, writer and musician aja monet. I got stuck on the penultimate song, “every media minute.” The noir-esque instrumental drew me in but these lyrics in the final minute resonated immediately…

i want a god no american can worship
i want a god who doesn’t want to be worshiped
who isn’t insecure or condescending
i want a god who doesn’t put borders around heaven
i want a god who smuggles souls pass patrol officers
sins seated in the trunk
of his four-door chest thundering down walls
i want a god don’t you?
we need something
something greater than ourselves there’s a whole lot of religion
and not enough god

There was that feeling — not just the lyrics, aja’s delivery or the musical atmosphere but all of them working in unison. Perhaps it hit harder given my own complex relationship with religion growing up Muslim in post-9/11 America. Or due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza on the basis of religious manifest destiny.

While aja calls out religion specifically, the passage isn’t really about that. Religion can be a source of good, a place for solace and a driver of community. It’s about rigid ideology. Ideologies that lead people to discard humanity, to “scroll over bodies,” to believe their feed over their own eyes. To do the exact opposite of what their own religions teach.

america’s hysterical hands drip blood a pointing finger uninward
the people scroll over bodies wet dreams of war
we want to believe we aren’t dying too.

As I walked through Times Square, a monument to the American Empire, I replayed the song over and over. Times Square is a surreal cacophony of it all — the people watching, the overstimulating bright lights, the unabashed consumerism, the Spiderman hanging from a traffic light. Out of the aforementioned white noise, came a sense of clarity and empathy. aja’s words cut through.

they have trained us to become what we loathe
to desire what disguises us
to be the executed and the executioner.

In “every media minute” there is a level of condemnation and an acknowledgement of our collective fatigue but there’s also aspiration — a call back to the humanity that has been suppressed by systems of our own making. People can be good. God can be good.