Realness is a difficult commodity to quantify in music. Yes, artists draw on life experiences to create their music and yes, emotion often shines through on certain tracks, but how much of it is contrived? How much of the person behind the artistic façade are we really getting when we hear a body of work? Jhené Aiko’s latest release Trip is a projects where the artist and the person become one and the authenticity of the work is never in doubt. Released as an album, short film and book of poety, Trip is the culmination of three years of recording. and five years of writing, traveling, rumination and turbulent emotion following the death of her brother Miyagi in 2012.
The first thing I did when digesting the body of work was listen to the “map,” a description roughly three minutes in length describing Aiko’s struggles and process behind creating the project. The accompanying short film clocks in around 23 minutes and is a crisp, well-shot visual representation of some of the project’s main themes, chiefly dealing with the emotional void left by the loss of her brother and Aiko’s attempts to find something meaningful to fill that void. The album itself is a long, expansive listen filled with soulful guitars, quiet piano keys and a variety of oddball baselines/synths/drums that result in a pensive, soothing, occasionally upbeat but intensely emotional listen. Aiko’s voice is quiet, almost childlike at times, and measured while still having the power and range to convey a variety of emotions. Album highlights include the spacey “Sativa” with a remarkable Swae Lee feature that finds him crooning about trying to move forward with a significant other. “Never Call Me” starts out like a more conventional slow jam that delves into Aiko's messy divorce from producer Dot The Genius. Aiko exhibits solid range over silky production, switching from slow singing to rapping before an uplifting phone call from Kurupt serves as the outro. “Sing to Me” is a beautiful back-and-forth between Aiko and her daughter Namiko over uplifting piano keys and what sounds like distant, thudding bongo drums. Namiko very much holds her own on the mic, which is no small feat for a young lady of eight. “LSD,” “While We’re Young” and “Psilocybin” are some other standouts.
Aiko did an expansive interview with NPR during which she gives her thought on each individual track, rendering my interpretations of each track gratuitous. Still, the album was released to moderate fanfare and critical attention, which I found surprising given the quality of both the music and the film. Aiko is a fascinating person with some refreshing, thoughtful takes on the human experience that come out Trip. I always finding it surprising how people generally overlook her work in discussions of contemporary R&B, but this project helped me understand why. Aiko’s style doesn't exactly conform contemporaryR&B; it certainly features elements of the genre, but she seems to strip away the overtly sexual content and murkier, more sultry production in favor of more raw emotion, personal reflection, and sharper live instrumentation to complement the chosen R&B and hip-hop trappings. Her music isn’t meant to climb charts; it’s her means of coping with the tragedies of her life as well as reflecting on her unique human experience. Perhaps this refusal to conform combined with the personal nature of her music turns off listeners or makes them uncomfortable, but I don’t think Aiko cares much either way. Her pleasure lies in creating the art, and that artistic drive is more than enough to make Trip worth your time.