Jhene Aiko is not new to the music industry, but her style is a breath of fresh air that listeners can appreciate. Her recent mixtape, Sailing Soul(s) was a big success and the songstress doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. In a recent interview with Singersroom, Aiko talked about her comeback and life as a mother to three-year-old Namiko Browner(dad is singer O’Ryan).
PHOTOS: See more pictures of Namiko now!
Motherhood and returning to the industry.
“My daughter was like one and a half and I was settled into being a mom. I wanted to put out a mixtape before I got pregnant and everything. I just felt like the time was right, because I wasn’t really doing anything. I thought that I’d just put out something for free. It took nine months to complete. It wasn’t something I put out because I wanted to get signed or get exposure. It was literally a project that turned into like an album.”
On her change in style.
“For the most part a lot of it has to do with how I personally like to sing. Because I can do different things with my voice, a lot of times people would write songs for me — it wouldn’t be my preference of singing, but I would be able to do it. So I’d record it and a lot of times I’d be uncomfortable singing louder, doing more runs or whatever the producer wanted me to do. I’d do it just to make everybody happy. When I got with Fisticuffs who produced the majority of Sailing Soul(s), we all would just vibe out. I would write while they were doing the beat and it would blend so perfectly. It was completely writing in the style I wanted to write and singing in the key I wanted to sing. We didn’t think about it like we want this song to sound ambient, we just did it. Each song is different, but it has the same tone of being mellow and soulful. It just happened. We created the sound as we went along. I think everyone gets the lane that I’m in.”
The next pop sensation?
“Right now I’m just going with the flow. There are so many things that I want to accomplish in my lifetime that aren’t being a recording artist. I want to go to school and be an English major. I want to learn about astronomy, I want to be a veterinarian; there are so many other things. I feel like this is happening right now in my life and it’s going really well and I don’t have a set goal like I have to make it to number one, win a Grammy or be on a billboard. I just want to make music with a message and get it out to as many people as I can.”
Read the full interview here.
