Jhené Aiko ramps up the sexiness in "Wading"

Wrapping up 2014, Jhené Aiko pleases fans' palates with the sexiest new video yet for her sultry ballad, "Wading," one of the more emotional songs from the Californian singer''s recently released debut album "Souled Out," and she wasted no time channeling that energy into the visual. Ever since her EP "Sail Out" released in 2013, the 26-year-old songbird has risen into the higher tier of modern day music artists. It's safe to say that Aiko has the winning formula figured out.

The Dot da Genius-produced ballad that finds Aiko "turn[ing] blue" thanks to her unreciprocated feelings for a certain man. First for those who don't know what the term wading means, slowly walking through water or a liquid substance. Aiko's voice croons through this track flawlessly. She takes a Tupac verse and turns it into a what if metaphor for losing her love. It's very ambient as her voice echo and fades out. To accompany the record, a melancholy, director Jay Ahn creates a moody, atmospheric clip set in a starkly-lit strip club.
Along with a dope story of infidelity, most of the visuals are dark and colored with a red tint. The R&B singer sports a skimpy black leotard with knee high boots and puts on her best "come hither" face as her plays an exotic private dancer in a seedy underground nightclub and everyone is enjoying themselves until a man tries to put something in her drink. From there, another gentlemen comes to her defense, which starts an epic Kung Fu battle before the SWAT team raids the venue as a terrified Aiko looks on the scene.

Jhené Aiko details just a few of "The Pressure"

A week before her debut album "Souled Out" arrives in stores, Jhené Aiko debuts the video for her single "The Pressure." From red carpets to raising a child, the L.A. songstress illustrates the challenges and stressful woes of being in a relationship amidst raising a child and fulfilling the duties as an artist in the Childish Gambino and Calmatic-directed clip. The 26-year-old singer-songwriter rocks blonde dreads in the vignettes, which feature a cameo from her real daughter Namiko.
Backed by a guitar-tinged, hip-hop production containing synths, metallic slaps and a shaky beat "The Pressure," is a PBR&B song that thematically revolves around Aiko's stress of finishing her debut album. During her first verse Aiko maintains her cool exhaling deeply, however during the song's lyrics become sharper, Aiko becomes flat-out dismissive. The lyric "I don't wanna see you go, but I don't have time to solve this/ And you don't have the right" as Aiko reflecting on the difficulty and stress she experienced while putting the finishing touches on "Souled Out."
Falling in line with the title and the song's lyrics, the video reflects just a few of the pressures that Aiko feels in her complex life both her personal and professional life as a pop star. The video starts around a dimly lit Aiko, as the camera rolls through a series of vignettes, the scenes consist of the singer drinking beer and eating pizza with her friends, flaring paparazzi bulbs, in her living room, trying to write more syrupy, slinky ballads while her daughter Namiko tugs on her blonde dreads, as well as all dressed up at a red carpet event.
She briefly finds serenity before a panorama of full moons before we're back in the thick of it: dating. Aiko sits on a leather couch enjoying an herbal refreshment with her beau, whose lost in the depths of his iPad - playing Candy Crush, presumably. Aiko is understandably salty; she shifts uncomfortably in her seat, a woman scorned. The scenes then begin to tick up tension, with friends fighting, lovers leaving and Aiko sending her child off to celebrate a birthday without her, this is followed by Aiko fading out.

Jhené Aiko acts out pains in 'Comfort Inn Ending'

Jhené Aiko acts out her pains in the music video for "Comfort Inn Ending (Freestyle)," the project's bonus cut from her 2013 EP "Sail Out," her first with Def Jam. The 26-year-old California singer has plenty of reasons to smile: Not only has her "Sail Out" EP been getting a lot of love from fans, she absolutely rocked Coachella on Sunday night. So what is it that has the emerging singer so upset in her new music video? A cheating lover, of course. The rising R&B artist laments the end of a relationship after a lover cheated on her, so she started an Air Jordan bonfire.
This song started off with a CD of beats given to her by Aiko's record label boss, producer No I.D. The track tells Aiko's personal stories about relationships, infidelity, and learning from past mistakes. One of the instrumentals especially spoke to her. She told Artist Direct: "That's how I write. I will just write around his track and wait until I start saying or singing something along." "I couldn't write anything to it," Aiko continued. "I was like, 'I love this track so far' so I went into the studio and just freestyle-d it. I was really going through it. I had just went through this heartbreak. I really felt like I wanted to tell that story. It was a freestyle."
The video is directed by Topshelf Jr and follows Aiko in the aftermath of learning about her lover's affair. She has a good cry, lights his shit on fire, the usual. It starts with Aiko flinging clothes out of her man's closet as she sings the song's opening and most poignant line, "Thought I told you not to trust these hoes," as she tosses shirts, jewelry and a pair of black and red Air Jordan XIs - one of the most sought after sneakers ever. Everyone deals with heartbreak differently; Aiko goes on a rampage, taking a key to her ex's Porsche while his new love sits inside. "Really, we had the perfect end, that night that we shared at the Comfort Inn," she sings after she comes to the conclusion: "I was not the only one to you."
The lyrics depicting a relationship that found its peak at a Comfort Inn, where they "made love like the world would have ended." With a stream of tears running down her cheek, the cutesy California siren pours a trail of gasoline and lights a match that ignites and sends her former lover's belongings up in flames. "I was weak then and you knew it," she sings. The end of the video flashes back to happier memories as Aiko and Mr. Wrong frolic in a grassy field, before she is snapped back into her fiery reality. "If this was not love, then please tell me what was it?" she pleads while staring into the flames.

Jhené Aiko spreads peace & love in "Bed Peace"

Jhené Aiko spends a lazy day in bed with her rumored boyfriend, Childish Gambino, aka actor/comedian Donald Glover (30 Rock, Community), and take us to the past in their new vintage video for her latest hazy single "Bed Peace," the lead single from Aiko's forthcoming much-anticipated 7-track mixtape EP "Sail Out," dropping November 12. The singer explains that growing up in L.A., she's always been around noise and that's why she's advocating a movement for peace.
The L.A. songstress enlists Gambino for the acoustic jam, which she previously debuted for Rap-Up Sessions. "It's a very summer, feel-good type of song," Aiko told Rap-Up TV of the Fisticuffs production. An homage to Beatles icon John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono's 1969 "Bed-Ins for Peace," which was their grassroots approach of protesting the Vietnam War non-violently, and the historical angle provides an unexpectedly good fit for the dreamy alt-soul gem. And the sight of Gambino and Aiko as Lennon and Ono has sparked plenty of dating rumors, but she insists that they're just "good friends" and that "time will tell."
After generating a mountain of hype with a killer mixtape and high-profile features, the 25-year-old is ready to shake up the game with her silky smooth jazz-tinged vocals and original perspective. "It's like bridging the gap between [my mixtape] Sailing Soul(s) and Souled Out,” Aiko explained her new EP. "Sail Out has a lot of the hip-hop/rap influence on it, even with the beats. It's something you wanna put in your car." We are so ready for that Aiko project. See why she's one of R&B's hottest rising stars up top.
In the peace-and-love video for "Bed Peace," we see a strong resemblance to the aforementioned protest, but with an entirely different approach. 2013's celebrities are everywhere at once, able to ask and be asked questions directly via social media, no matter if they're in bed, at the gym, or on a shoot. Both the rapper and songstress get up close and personal, as these two play a couple staging their own bed-in, dressed in all-white pajamas, in their high-rise apartment, playing with flowers and taking bedside interviews from reporters one by one, as Aiko explains what it means to her to "sail out," and the clip fits in with the song's inspiration.