Latest Release
- NOV 22, 2024
- 25 Songs
- Trip · 2017
- Sail Out - EP · 2013
- Triggered (freestyle) - Single · 2019
- Sailing Soul(s) [2021 Bonus Tracks Edition] · 2011
- Chilombo · 2020
- Sailing Soul(s) [2021 Bonus Tracks Edition] · 2011
- Trip · 2017
- Nothing Was the Same (Deluxe) · 2013
- Chilombo (Deluxe Edition) · 2020
- Sail Out - EP · 2013
Essential Albums
- Jhené Aiko is hardly in the business of cranking out hits. Perhaps an 85-minute concept album makes her something of an anachronism, but it’s exactly what keeps the Los Angeles enchantress at the vanguard of R&B. On her 2017 studio album, the singer-songwriter expands on the atmospheric aesthetic established on her mesmerizing 2014 debut, Souled Out. Along with her faithful producers Dot Da Genius, Fisticuffs, No ID, and Key Wane, Aiko invites a diverse group of collaborators to help her navigate this expansive journey of self-discovery. While Trip dives deep into psychedelia, it’s not an exercise in escaping reality but rather an all-consuming look into it. On the LP’s glistening opener, “LSD,” Aiko slips a “tiny piece of paper” under her tongue and plunges down the rabbit hole. Throughout the album, her trips—the good, bad, sober, and drug-fueled—are laden with emotion, making the ethereal production even more beguiling. On the gentle folk reverie “Jukai” (a reference to Japan’s “Suicide Forest”), Aiko flirts with death. “Made it out alive,” she chants, her voice floating into the ether. Later, on “Nobody,” she’s popping pills and reciting her life’s most meaningful events over a narcotic groove. “I’m here in this hell that I don’t want to live in,” she sings with a listless lilt. But it’s love that keeps lifting her higher—on tracks like the woozy romance ballad “While We’re Young,” the retro-cosmic club romp “OLLA (Only Lovers Left Alive),” and the intoxicating bedroom groover “Sativa,” featuring Swae Lee. Her collaborators weave in and out as if guest stars in a lucid dream: Big Sean complements her candid come-ons on “Moments,” John Mayer injects a dose of acid-soaked guitar into “New Balance,” and Brandy floats in like an angel on the twinkling lullaby “Ascension.” As on Souled Out, Aiko’s inward explorations are still most inextricably linked with family. Her daughter, Namiko Love, returns to the mic for the sweet duet “Sing to Me.” Meanwhile, her father, Karamo Chilombo (a.k.a. Dr. Chill), slides in like a venerable sage on the album’s trippiest tracks, the jazz-infused doozies “Oblivion (Creation”) and “Psilocybin (Love In Full Effect).” On the latter, he shares the epiphany that comes with many a mystical trip: “We’re all from the universe soul. We’re all one.”
- A baby changes everything. For Jhené Aiko, having a daughter inspired the Los Angeles native to return to music after dipping her toes in the spotlight in the early 2000s. At just 15 years old, she was collaborating with boy band B2K and preparing to release her solo debut. But that album never came to fruition. Aiko bowed out of her label contract and focused on school. That decision allowed her to grow personally and artistically. After several years, she began to write, inspired by single motherhood and rocky relationships (with men and the music industry). Alongside production duo Fisticuffs, Aiko built her confidence as a songwriter, spilling out lyrics with a stream-of-consciousness cadence that lends swagger to her airy intonations. Sailing Soul(s) is her bold reintroduction, a liberating collection of sultry neo-soul and dark, minimalist alt-R&B that showcases Aiko’s hypnotic mix of wit and sexuality. This is not an album but a mixtape. That distinction allows her to explore her potential—to team up with big names, try on different sounds, and speak her mind. On the cover, she emerges from the sea wrapped in chains—with a look of steely confidence. “Don't sell your soul, sail your soul,” she sings with a mesmerizing echo on “sailing NOT selling,” the mixtape’s groovy centerpiece. This ode to self-empowerment is a theme that runs through much of Aiko’s work, whether she’s owning her sexuality (the sizzling “hoe,” featuring Miguel), calling out a man (the moody “stranger”), or likening her love to a drug (the seductive “higher”). Aiko’s voice is like silk, elegantly wrapping around metallic beats, spacey drones, and punchy guitar riffs (the 50 Cent-sampling “popular”). This 10th-anniversary edition underscores Aiko’s clear vision for a new wave of R&B—and herself as one of its pioneering artists. It also includes five bonus tracks that show how effortlessly she can slip between sexy (“living room flow”) and sassy (“B’s & H’s”).
Artist Playlists
- Since her rediscovery, this R&B siren is a force to be reckoned with.
- On film, the R&B provocateur plays good and bad with equal allure.
- Listen to the hits performed on the blockbuster tour.
- Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
- The R&B artist takes you on a serene musical journey.
Compilations
More To Hear
- Sobriety and sound therapy gave the singer a new way to heal.
- The artist shares stories and inspiration behind ‘Chilombo.’
- Jhené and Ebro continue their conversation on Chilombo.
- The singer-songwriter talks to Ebro about her album Chilombo.
- Mixes from DJs G0HomeRoger x Kid Masterpiece, plus Morgan Keyz.
- Mixes from DJs G0HomeRoger x Kid Masterpiece, plus Morgan Keyz.
- Brazilian dreams and a Jhené Aiko debut.
More To See
About Jhené Aiko
At some point on her path, R&B seeker Jhené Aiko discovered the concept of sound healing. Well, not just sound healing, but singing bowls—instruments whose resonances are thought to help balance and heal chakras corresponding to the particular note played. If it sounds a little New Age-y, fine—Aiko can live with it. For as long as she’d been making music, people had been coming up and telling her how it helped them study, helped them sleep, helped them get through a hard time. “Then I found this tangible thing,” she told Apple Music. “This sound healing, that’s actually healing on a cellular level. I put those two thoughts together and I was like, okay, my purpose in doing my music isn’t just for me to get through things, but it’s to help other people.” Not that Aiko lives in the clouds. If anything, she represents a wave of younger artists bringing the introspection of ’70s R&B and ’90s neo-soul into the self-care era, handling real, everyday stuff—relationships, parenting, sex, personal discovery—with a slight cosmic slant. Born Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo in Los Angeles in 1988, she started her career contributing occasional vocals to the R&B group B2K as a teenager, signing with a subsidiary of Def Jam in 2011. Aiko found her footing quickly, straddling hip-hop and R&B, rapping and singing, boasting about going 10 rounds in bed one minute (“Sativa”) and tripping out on our universal humanity the next (“New Balance”). A mix of Japanese, Native American, Spanish, Dominican, Black, and Jewish, Aiko never knew quite where she fit—a sense of dislocation that made her not only a beacon to all kinds of audiences, but the embodiment of someone whose identity felt somehow fractured or unresolved. In other words, a person in search of themselves.
- HOMETOWN
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- BORN
- March 16, 1988
- GENRE
- R&B/Soul