R+P Post 12: Artists and Bands that have influenced my ideas

Jhene Aiko

Jhene Aiko's artist identity has played a huge part in influencing my ideas on how I'd want to present my own artist as and then market them. She is an American singer and songwriter from Los Angeles, Caliornia. 

Her main style of music as described by the quote below is of the Rnb genre. 

"Aiko’s newfound style lies somewhere between the soothing sounds of Sade and what can be nebulously described as “future R&B,” a broad spectrum of pioneering music-makers making tunes best served in the midnight hour, includingThe Weeknd, Tinashe and FKA twigs.”

— Bradley Stern, Time

It has influenced me to stick with the RnB genre route when deciding not just my Artists identity, but also our target audience. However she does at times venture out and create songs which bring together many different types of genres, for example pop and Rnb together. This unpredictability of where her music will go is what keeps her audience and fan base on their toes and in wait of her next upcoming song. It's definitely something I'll think about when creating my own artist's identity. Maybe instead of having an artist that sticks to just one genre, like Rnb, I may, along with my group, decide to have a hybrid mix of genres our artist will be known for.

Adam Fleischer of MTV described Aiko's lyrical content as being "catchy and emotive", continuing to note Aiko's lyrics as having no boundaries; which mix "moments of sensitivity and love, but also moments of confusion and aggression"

"Lyin King"- Jhene Aiko Music Video

Because Aiko's lyrics are so emotive, it leads to her making music videos that are of the narrative type rather than performance or concept- for example, "Lyin king". Thus leading her audience to take part in what Goodwin describes as a voyeuristic approach to watching a music video. The creativity of her narrative music videos, including the vast amount of symbolism and iconography they use, influences me to similarly create a narrative type of music video rather than a performance or concept. 

Her style and look

In the top left of the visual board above demonstrating Jhene Aiko's look and style is an example of what'll probably be one of my main influences when deciding the costume of our artist when discussing with my group. This is because if we decide to do an Rnb artist like I would like to, this is the type of clothing they usually wear.  The screenshot of one of her tweets from her official twitter page shows the kind of colloquial and informal language she uses, which makes her seem down to earth and very relatable to her fans. Her appeal to her audience as being 'relatable' is how I would like to portray my artist as it's a type of 'star' identity that is seemed to be used across a lot of other artists, like Ed Sheeran, and seems to work.

An example of Jhene Aiko's style of music is another reason as to why she influences me to make my artist an Rnb artist. This is because the beat of most Rnb songs are very unique and fun to edit to, for example when cutting to the beat of the music.