Jhené Aiko Narrates Her Psychedelic 'Trip' Through Death, Love And Reawakening

Jhené Aiko is not of this world.

Somewhere between pop-oriented R&B and traditional soul, the singer-songwriter floats like an ethereal voice disembodied from typical format and genre distinctions. So when we talk one week prior to the unannounced release of her epic new album, it comes as no surprise that she's much more interested in easing into the big reveal rather than making a huge splash.

"I don't like hyping stuff up," she says. "It's personal. It's not something contrived or something I want to turn into this big deal.... I just want to share it without it being something people are expecting."

Several years in the making, Trip is totally unexpected. The autobiographical soundscape of Aiko's healing journey follows the loss of her brother, Miyagi Chilombo, to cancer in 2012, and her futile quest to replace that love with romantic relationships and vices that failed to fill the void.

The youngest of five siblings, each born two years apart, Aiko was closest in age and kinship to Miyagi before his death. "Often, when you're dealing with grief, it's kind of like you relapse," Aiko says. "Something little can stretch you all the way back to that moment and you're starting all over and reliving everything. So that keeps happening to me, but the older I get I feel like I'm finding a way to not let it completely disable me. My writing is like my therapy. That's what I turn to."

Most of the songs began as poems she penned in journals, often during trips she began taking in solitude to nature sanctuaries like Big Sur. Beyond the field trips, or even the drug-induced trips that drive much of the narrative, Aiko's odyssey rises to levels metaphorical and metaphysical as her quest turns further inward over the hour-and-a-half span of dreamlike, meditative grooves.

Aiko recorded over the span of three years, largely in the Hollywood studio of producer No I.D., who signed her to his ARTium Recordings label in 2012, before self-releasing her EP and debut LP via Def Jam. Beyond collaborations with Mali Music and Brandy, the new album features her daughter Namiko Love, Aiko's father Dr. Chill and, album and poetry book — or M.A.P. — intermittently released over the course of the first week, along with an audio that spells out her sweeping vision.