Her mellowness, wordplay and lyrical dexterity hooked me straightaway. I started listening to tracks off her mixtape released last year titled Sailing Soul(s) and found her really compelling. It was kind of like listening to a voice as soothing and smooth as Cassie but more meaningful, intimate and personal.
Reading some of her interviews and hearing that the motivation behind her mixtape was to make listeners look inwards and reflect on their experiences not to create money (hence why it was free) intrigued me more. I guess in this day and age where the music market is saturated with people keen to create killer hooks to generate money and commercial success, I like how Jhene Aiko is looking to create a project challenging listeners to explore her world by being relevant and vulnerable in her simplicity and lyrics.
One of her standout tracks on the mixtape is Stranger.
Throughout the entire song she remains in the same vocal range, keyboard arrangement looping, complete with backing harmonies but it's so simple to allow you to focus on her lyrics. To her, all men are the same to the point that they all become faceless strangers and whilst many might agree, or just as many disagree that's simply a look into her world and her perception of it - and that's ok.
Another track I loved was My Mine.
If you listen closely to her lyrics, she likens the experience of getting over someone who she was in a broken relationship with to being trapped in a mine. Sitting there, looking upwards. It's funny. If you listen closely to the way in which she talks about the torment of memories in her mind, it's not actually mind she is singing - it is mine.
She's lovely.
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