A.J. Haynes

NEW ORLEANS 2025 - 2026

A.J. Haynes (she/they) is an interdisciplinary, interdependent, interdimensional Black and Filipina queer singer, songwriter, actress, educator, and reproductive justice practitioner from the South. She is the lead vocalist of the genre-expansive soul power band Seratones, which has garnered both national and international acclaim. Her creative work spans performance, songwriting, and immersive storytelling—infused with a deep belief that art is part of collective community care and that the body is a sacred site of resistance and pleasure. A.J. uses music and embodiment to explore autonomy, intimacy, and ancestral resilience.

COMMUNITY PROJECT

I Deserve It! / Ashé Cultural Arts Center

Mother Your Mind is a multimedia project by musician and activist A.J. Haynes, created in collaboration with the Ashé Cultural Arts Center and their I Deserve It! initiative. Presented through visual, sonic, and storytelling modalities, the project includes a sound and art installation within the Center’s BirthRite breastfeeding spaces, intergenerational story-sharing circles on mothering, and sonic collages derived from these narratives. Emerging from Haynes’s ongoing musical exploration of her own wounds, joys, and reflections on mothering, the project seeks to hold space for collective healing, creative expression, and the honoring of the divine mothering wisdom.

Guided by Loretta J. Ross’s definition of mothering as “the glad gifting of one’s talents, ideas, intellect, and creativity to the universe without recompense,” Mother Your Mind reimagines mothering as both an act of creation and a practice of community care. The project aims to design a nurturing, beautiful space that supports lactation and self-mothering; cultivate an ecosystem of care at Ashé through collaboration with doulas, midwives, herbalists, physicians, and other healers; and amplify the authentic stories and innovations of the community.