STYLING BY XS STUDIO. HAIR BY JAZMINE HARRIS. MAKEUP BY JUANICE REED.J
HENÉ AIKO IS BURNING
incense inside New York’s
Germano Studios in NoHo,
preparing the space for a lis-
tening session of her upcoming
album, Chilombo, out March 6
on Def Jam. She wants the energy to
be pure; after all, the record is Aiko’s
first deep dive into the idea of sound
healing. During the creative process
for her third album, the experimen-
tal R&B singer was adamant about
incorporating crystal alchemy sound
bowls — which produce an extended
vibrational hum — on each track. Her
hope was to open up different chakras
within the human body.
“For instance, ‘P*$$Y Fairy
(OTW)’ ” — the album’s punchiest and
most provocative track — “is in the
key of D, so I played a bowl in the note
of D, and that governs your sexuality,”
explains Aiko weeks after the listen-
ing session. “It helps balance out your
sexual organs like your navel and your
hips. So even though the song is fun
and sexy, there’s an actual instrument
in there [inspiring that energy].”
It’s not the first time Aiko, 31, has
explored sound bowls: Last Septem-
ber, she uploaded a six-minute medi-
tation called “Trigger Protection
Mantra” to Instagram. Chilombo is,
however, Aiko at her most confident
in the practice.
The Los Angeles-bred singer, born
Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo, first
gained mainstream attention with her
2011 mixtape, Sailing Souls, which she
released independently. It boasted
features from Drake, Kendrick Lamar
While recording her third album,
Chilombo, Jhené Aiko used sound
bowls, commonly known as singing
bowls. When struck or shaken, they
release a vibrational hum that reso-
nates throughout the body, producing
a calming and tranquil effect. Singing
bowls are a common practice in heal-
ing and meditation, as they promote
chakra balancing as well as stress and
anxiety reduction. Here, Aiko shares
how they influenced her sound.[This album] is an introduction to
sound bowls for people who don’t
really know about them — this is
me introducing my newfound love.
These bowls are crystal alchemy
sound bowls, so they are made from
gemstones. Gemstones are fused withthings like platinum or made out of ru-
bies and diamonds — and all of these
different elements and properties
contribute to their healing factors. I
basically was recording and had a ses-
sion at my house where I just played
different bowls to the music; every
chakra has a note that corresponds to
music. For instance, on “P*$$Y Fairy
(OTW),” there’s actually two bowls
in there: There’s a D bowl and there’s
an A bowl, and they’re both playing
and resonating within your body when
you’re listening to that song.
There are bowls on every single
song on this album. Some of them
you can hear more than others, but
they are throughout the whole album.
Obviously, there’s other instruments,
and this isn’t [solely] a healing album— the bowls were just a component
I wanted to add because this is
something that I’m moving forward
with. You’ll see a lot more of me
owning this.
I’m still in transition, but I’m still
me. I still love to write all types of
songs and listen to all types of music,
but Chilombo definitely has a lot
more acoustic instruments because
I wanted it to be music that you can
feel. You can hear what the mic was
picking up in the room. Everyone
was playing actual instruments, [and]
those resonate with you differently
than digital. Chilombo is all of my
projects that I put out prior to this
combined. This is the baby — but it’s
the evolved version.
—AS TOLD TO C.L.and Kanye West. By the end of the
year, Aiko had signed a recording con-
tract with ARTium, producer No I.D.’s
Def Jam-distributed label. Her 2013
single, the piano-led “The Worst” (off
the EP Sail Out), established her as a
compelling new voice as she sang: “I
do not depend on nothing or no one.”
When her 2014 debut full-length,
Souled Out, hit Nos. 1 and 3 on the
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and
the Billboard 200, respectively, Aiko
cemented her place as one of R&B’s
rising stars. She set herself apart from
the rest with the hazy, psychedelic
Trip, a surprise drop that arrived in
2017 and landed in the Billboard 200’s
top five — without a publicity push.
Trip’s success helped inform the
“off-cycle” streaming strategy that she
and her team employ today, in which
they intentionally release a new track
just outside of the window when
streaming platforms typically update
playlists, which “is liberating from
a pressurized playlisting strategy,”
says Def Jam GM/executive vp Rich
Isaacson. “It’s important to her that
each track release is its own ecosys-
tem. Jhené and her team feed each
one with unique content strategies
to prolong the life cycle, and over the
course of eight to 10 to 12 months of
steady consumption, she racks up re-
ally impressive numbers.”
Even without maximizing a track’s
immediate exposure on streaming
services, the three singles already
released from Chilombo — which
finds middle ground between her
early, more traditionally styled R&Bwith the atmospheric sounds of Trip
— have collectively garnered 363 mil-
lion streams, according to Nielsen
Music/MRC Data. It doesn’t hurt that
the first two singles before “P*$$Y
Fairy (OTW)” fueled speculation
over Aiko’s relationship status with
on-again-off-again partner Big Sean.
Lead single “Triggered” arrived
last May and offered a grippingtake on how bad habits in previ-
ous relationships tarnished Aiko’s
outlook on love, leaving fans to
assume that she was trashing the rap-
per. It became her highest-charting
Hot R&B Songs solo hit, landing at
No. 3; six months later, she upended
expectations with her Big Sean col-
laboration “None of Your Concern.”
Elsewhere, Aiko enlists Future and
Miguel on the savory “H.O.E. (Hap-
piness Is Everything),” and on the
sobering “10K,” featuring Nas, she
seeks peace and restoration.
Aiko, who will head out on tour
this May, believes the notion of the
phrase “none of your concern,” in
particular, extends well beyond her
love life, saying that self-discovery
played a crucial role in the creation
of Chilombo, for which she trekked
to Hawaii to record. It was there that
she decided to turn her last name into
the album title. “ ‘Chilombo’ is a word
that means ‘wild beast’ — they’re
strong, confident and grateful,” she
says. “Beasts are also beautiful.”
She likens herself to the many
active volcanoes that surrounded
her while she recorded on the Big
Island, saying: “In a sense, I am
like a volcano, and this album is an
eruption. It starts with ‘Triggered,’
and there’s a lava flow with all these
songs where it’s a free-flowing jam
session. We didn’t settle — and it
became this beautiful land where
there’s new life.”SOUND BOWLS: EXPLAINED
“In a sense,
I am like a
volcano, and
this album is
an eruption,”
says Aiko.32 BILLBOARD • FEBRUARY 29, 2020