Jhené Aiko is one of the most exciting names in the R&B game at the moment, as she quickly rose to the international level in the last few months. She has been jumping on feature spots with the likes it ScHoolboy Q, Omarion and Kendrick, as well as slowly but surely honing her own craft.
I admit I was a bit slow off the mark when it came to her, but after seeing her latest video for Eternal Sunshine, I am well and truly a member of Team Aiko.
Having lost her brother to cancer in 2012, and having a near death experience in a car crash with her sister and father the following year, Jhene has clearly developed a different outlook on life, putting those feelings into this song. It’s a track that makes you want to call your parents and stop and take a moment. It’s calming and spiritual, and tugs on heartstrings in a way that only a voice like that could.
The best thing about the accompanying visuals is that it takes the track, that would have sounded like a light, feel-good piano ballad, and gives it an immense amount of emotional depth. By setting a solemn looking Aiko above a road where these two tragedies play out with family photos and footage scattered throughout, the seemingly innocent song is now completely gut-wrenching, watching her world shatter behind her as she sings about “All of the good things”.
Eternal Sunshine is taken from Aiko’s 2014 release, Souled Out.