Getting to know the soulful Jhene Aiko

“I love me..I love me enough for the both of us..”

 If you’re a Drake fan, or simply one of those people who suffer from FOMO [Fear of Missing Out], chances are you downloaded the Nothing Was The Same Leak this week and shed a few Thug Tears to these lyrics.  And if you didn’t, I’m fairly certain you wanted to.

 The Lady crooning these heart wrenching words goes by the name of Jhene Aiko, and if the name doesn’t sound familiar, you’ve been slacking on your music game lately. 

In the past few months Jhene has been featured on Wale’s The Gifted on a track called “Cool Off”,  J Cole’s “Sparks will Fly” off the Born Sinner Deluxe Edition and Big Sean’s “Beware” off Hall of Fame, the video for which dropped a few weeks ago. Her collaboration with Drake, although not the first, has thrust her into the spotlight, and right now, everyone wants to know who the moody siren is.

Did you know? 

  • Jhene was signed to Sony Epic when she was only 12 years old, and went on tour with B2K.  She already had quite a substantial amount of experience in the music business by the time she was 16, when she decided to take a break from music to focus on school.
  • She released her first mixtape, Sailing Souls, in 2011, and it quickly solidified a fan base for her.  She says she recorded the whole mixtape stoned, which may be why the cyber world, Tumblr kids especially, loved it so much.
  • She’s collaborated with TDE on a number of tracks, most notably Ab Soul’s ‘Terrorist Threats’, Schoolboy Q’s ‘Fantasy’ and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Growing Apart’.
  • Early this year she signed with No I.D, and is set to release her first album Souled Out under Def Jam.  The album has no release date yet, but according to Aiko, most of the singles are already done.
  • She’s a huge Kid Cudi fan and says she’d like to collaborate with him sometime soon.
  • She writes everyday. Whether it be a random note, lyrics or quotes, and says one day she’d like to compile all her extra work into fictional books.
  • She has a daughter, Namiko Love, whose father is Omarion’s younger brother, O’Ryan.
  • Her vocals were also featured on Drake’s ‘Wu Tang Forever’.
  • After wrapping up recording and picking singles that’ll go on her debut album, Jhene realised there were still loads left over and so decided to give an EP to her fans.
  • The Sail Out EP will drop on October 29th. Despite heavily collaborating with big names lately, Jhene cites Kendrick Lamar as being the only artist who’s been willing to reciprocate and appear on Sail Out. Speaking on the issue with Vibe.Com she said:

“I don’t take any offense to people not wanting to return the favor. I did the songs [with Wale, Sean, Cole] because I liked everything and I would want them to want to do a song of mine. Nowadays, No I.D. told me, ‘You can stand on your own’ and I agree with him. At the end of the day, if I just take an extra week to write a hot 16, I can do it.”

 Sail Out will apparently have a heavy rap influence and will feature a few bars from Aiko’s alter ego J Hennessy.

 We await. 

Written by: Berry

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