California as a musical region is essentially a hip-hop boys club.
With several male artists dominating the region: Dom Kennedy, Casey Veggies, Tyler the Creator, Moe Green, there’s a clear lack of female representation. However, there’s one girl for sure making a name for herself, songstress Jhene Aiko.
Aiko entered the scene in 2004 with her debut single, “No Love” which was released via TUG/Epic Records. This was during the rise of urban boy-bands, notably label mates B2K. Aiko was set to release her debut album My Name is Jhene, however, she left the spotlight to pursue her education and eventually motherhood.
Returning to music, this past March, Aiko released her debut project Sailing Souls, a project that could easily be described as the soundtrack to the twenty-something demographic. Exploring topics of love, self, and life, the project has a song that relates to some dimension of everyone’s life. Paying attention to the buzz that the project created, Above Ground Productions, bought Aiko out for her first headlining show Thursday September 29th, at San Francisco’s 330 Ritch.
Above Ground has been shining a light on some of the best and biggest underground artists—Theophilius London, Casey Veggies, Kreayshawn, and this show was no different. The venue appeared to be to its capacity with both sides of the venue open and a crowd from front to back. People came out in their best threads—men in their best gears to “catch” Jhene. The show had three opening acts; while local favorite DJ King Most rocked the crowd during show breaks playing a wide variety of music—everything from Cali Swag District’s “Teach Me How To Dougie” to SBTRKT’s “Wildfire.”
With three opening acts for the show—Tokyo24, Erin Paula and Iamsu!, there were definitely two that stood out. First, would have to be hip-hop group (I believe) Tokyo24. They looked a little hipster—the keyboard player and drummer with glasses on and the lead—the rapper of the group, with a long shirt, and jean vest, however, they definitely captivated the crowd from the beginning of their set to the end of their set with great energy. They did open at another Above Ground Event earlier this year, however, with this performance it was almost as if they took the critiques from the last performance (if there was any) and added to their stage show--great performance. The last and final opening act was producer/rapper Iamsu! who definitely had the crowd’s attention from start to finish. Out of all the opening acts, Iamsu! was the only artist who had a substantial following as he gets played regularly on 106 KMEL, however, after his set full of dancing, and lots of personality, as well as special guests rappers Jay Ant and Skipper of HBK-- he is sure to have got some new fans. Make sure you check out his music here.
After Iamsu!’s set was over, Aiko’s band took to the stage to set up for when Ms. Aiko would finally arrive. All the girls kept commenting on her guitar player saying things like “he’s so fine,” as they waited. Her manager apologized to the audience for keeping them waiting for so long and explained how they wanted to make sure the sound was perfect so they would receive a good show.
When Aiko finally entered the stage, she started giving the crowd what they wanted right away performing music from her latest release Sailing Souls. The crowd was captivated by Jhene from the start of her set singing along to her music from she actually started the songs.
Aiko bought out friend, Los Angeles based rapper Hope for their duet of “Do Better Blues” from the project, and he also performed music from his solo album in the form of “Nightlife.” The two played homage to classic hip-hop for a pretty memorable rendition of then beautiful Lil’ Kim’s “Crush On You” featuring rapper Lil’Cease.
Aiko has a great stage presence. Watching her perform, she has an almost youthful quality with excitement of people knowing and loving her music, as well as a sexy siren type quality as well. If Aiko ever makes it back to the Bay Area, make sure to check her out, and download her free mixtape Sailing Souls, here. Also, make sure to be on the look out for Soul Out, the highly anticipated follow up to Sailing Souls, which should be coming out sometime this fall. Also, make sure you stay connected with all of the events Above Ground will be hosting in the future here.
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