Jhené Aiko's buttery smooth vocals can make anyone's knees melt. The R&B seductress has worked alongside hip-hop and R&B's most sought-after performers, including Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Childish Gambino, Big Sean and Common, but she's proven herself just as powerful a player — in the studio as well as onstage. Aiko started building her name as the opening act on the 2012 Life Is Good/Black Rage tour with Nas and Lauryn Hill. The following year, she opened for Drake on his Would You Like a Tour? concert series, and in 2014 she set out on her first headlining trek, the Enter the Void tour. She's gone on to tour with artists including The Weeknd, Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, Lana Del Rey, and Beyonce and Jay-Z, while headlining her own shows, including her 2020 The Magic Hour tour, which sold out completely after releasing her third album, Chilombo.

Jhené Aiko in Concert

Los Angeles native Jhené Aiko has been surrounded by music her entire life, but a break from the music industry allowed her to come into her own as an R&B star and in-demand collaborator. Aiko already had a record deal by the time she was in her teens, and she appeared on tracks and music videos with labelmates B2K in the early '00s. At the time, she was preparing to release her solo debut album, but decided to leave music altogether to focus on school and, eventually, her daughter. But by 2011, after becoming a mom, she was ready to kick-start her own career with help from a handful of big names, including Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West, all of whom appear on her debut mixtape, Sailing Soul(s). She followed that with an appearance on Big Sean's hit "Beware," and then her 2013 debut EP for Def Jam, Sail Out, a hazy, atmospheric collection that brought her more widespread attention across the hip-hop and R&B spectrum — as well as two Grammy nominations. Aiko continued her streak as an alternative R&B trailblazer with her 2014 debut album, Souled Out, and 2017's Trip. She'd then return in 2020 with the chart-topping Chilombo, an album of freestyle jams whose title means "wild beast" in Japanese and is also part of the singer's full name, Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo.