After debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, Jhené Aiko has released the deluxe version of her latest album, Chilombo. The expanded edition features nine new tracks and guest appearances from Kehlani, Chris Brown, Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and several others.
Jhené Aiko's soothing third studio album is named after her legal surname. "Chilombo is a word that means ‘wild beast’—they’re strong, confident and graceful," she told Billboard back in March leading up to the album's release. "Beasts are also beautiful."
The 20-track LP originally came laced with tracks like the heavily popular "Triggered (Freestyle)," "None of Your Concern" with Big Sean, "PU$$Y Fairy (OTW)," and "Happiness Over Everything (H.O.E.)" featuring Future and Miguel. Love is a pivotal force that powers this project, and that looks to be a theme that has carried over into the deluxe as well.
When discussing her initial approach to the album, Aiko talked about how she wanted to lean into more acoustic sounds.
"I’m still in transition, but I’m still me. I still love to write all types of songs and listen to all types of music, but Chilombo definitely has a lot more acoustic instruments because I wanted it to be music that you can feel," she said. "You can hear what the mic was picking up in the room. Everyone was playing actual instruments, [and] those resonate with you differently than digital. Chilombo is all of my projects that I put out prior to this combined. This is the baby — but it’s the evolved version."
Aiko made a guest appearance on John Legend's Bigger Love that released on Juneteenth, and recently teamed up with Ab-Soul to deliver the visual for "One Way St." Aiko planned to begin the Magic Hour Tour on May 1 in Boston, but due to COVID-19 she's set to reschedule it.
Stream the deluxe version of Jhené Aiko's Chilombo down below and watch the newly released music video for "Summer 2020" up top.
