Growing up as a teenage girl in the early 2000’s, it was almost expected that you were a fan of B2K. I inherited my love of B2K from my love of Immature and I remember hanging posters, buying multiple CDs, magazines, writing their fan club and going to concerts just so I could be near my faves Omarion and Lil Fizz. I also inherited a love for their T.U.G labelmates, including a 13 year old Jhene Aiko. Now over a decade later Jhene is finally getting the respect and acknowledgement she deserves. Connecting with fans who have been heart broken or those who enjoy the occasional blunt or two, Jhene’s soft melodies have solidified her a spot amongst one of R&B’s forces to be reckoned with.
I recently got the opportunity to sit down with Jhene and though our talk was very brief, I was able to ask her about coming in the game at 12 years old, her progression and of course — what took so damn long for us to get Souled Out! Check out the Baller Alert exclusive below.
Baller Alert: You’ve been in the game since you were like 12 years old. Did you ever see yourself at the point you are right now?
Jhene Aiko: I don’t really think a lot about the future, if that makes sense. I feel like I live so much in the moment that I just always have been a firm believer in everything happens for a reason and having faith that things will turn out how they are supposed to for the better. So when I was younger I definitely knew I had an interest in singing and it was something that I was doing often and for a career but not until I became an adult with a daughter with bills to pay that I chose this as a career at this point is really just about me connecting with people while feeding my daughter, you know what I mean. I definitely didn’t see that when I was younger, I never thought that id have a daughter. It was just fun then but now it’s a little more, it’s still fun, you know it’s more about I have a need to express myself. Like whether it be through songs, songwriting or twitter, I just have to say what’s on my mind.
BA: Speaking of when you were younger, I was actually a huge fan of yours and I remember some of the songs you did back then. On the B2K album you did “You’re A Dog” and now your music has kind of changed. How did you make that transition?
JA: I think that because obviously I was like 12 or 13 and I had nothing to really talk about, you know. Like was I really gonna talk about school, or grades and a lot of those songs, really all of those songs during those B2K days were just written by random and what they felt like I should be singing. So a lot of them were inconsistent with who I was. They wanted me to have this little attitude and be extra feisty (which I can be) but it wasn’t really coming from a natural place. So when I started sitting down and writing my songs from top to bottom. it was all about me expressing myself and singing how I wanted to sing and really creating stuff I liked, that I would listen to even if it wasn’t me, just stuff that I liked. That just the transition which is me growing up it was a natural type thing of me just finding myself and going through things and wanting to write songs about them.
BA: Who are some of your musical influences?
JA: The first voice that I fell in love with was Brandy. Like what, Brandy!! [Laughs] She was the first voice that I fell in love with and I just remember always being like I love that style of singing it wasn’t too much but her hymns were so crisp. Just all the 90’s R&B. Ummm, I grew up really loving India Arie, John Mayer, Alanis Morrisette, Fiona Apple, Kid Cudi, Tupac, Kanye, and the Spice Girls. I grew up random. I try not to listen to a lot of music because I constantly want to be original and be fresh and so it’s hard for me to get into something but more recently I’ve been really inspired by people like Chance the rapper, Drake, Frank Ocean, just storytellers. I really appreciate honest storytelling, people just wanting to get things off their chest because it’s so relatable and everyone appreciates an honest person.
BA: Before releasing Souled Out a few months back, . You released your Sail Out EP, and Sailing Souls mixtape. It seemed like Souled Out took forever. What was the hold up?
JA: Basically after the mixtape when I signed my deal [with Def Jam], I just started recording. I mean I’m writing and recording songs all the time. So the EP and the album was actually one thing but I just basically split them up into two projects because I wanted to release something in 2013 because people were expecting something. So instead of being like no you have to wait until 2014. So for me I just came up with this idea because I really wanted people to get something from me so I took the songs and put them in the EP and the songs with all the features. Songs that were for radio and weren’t really digging deep into my song writing and so I put them on the EP. The album was like the beginning of me introducing myself and really getting deep into or starting to get deep into who I am and a true introduction. So it was all just a timing thing and wanting to make sure that everything was thoroughly thought out.
“I’m just one of those people that goes with the flow. So it’s just like as long as it’s always progressive, I’m not looking for like a skyrocket type of situation I just wanted it to always be steady and nice and easy.” – Jhene Aiko
Get Jhene Aiko’s Souled Out album on iTunes HERE.
Follow Jhene on Twitter/Instagram: @JheneAiko
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