Listen: Jhene Aiko - "The Pressure"

Once again she’s produced a track almost as impressive in its ability to conjure a mood as for the raw honesty of her lyricism. Her style is direct: that’s been clear throughout the work she’s thus far released - Aiko’s made a name for herself adopting an explicit, direct, and at times almost confrontational approach. The nature of her writing (she freestyles most of her lyrics) has made her adept at depicting the emotional fallout of a failed relationship, and “Pressure” is no different. In a tone that alternates between melodic and conversational she calls out her faltering lover, her delivery reinforcing a facade of emotional austerity that serves to highlight a vulnerability present in the tired sighs of her vocal: “have you seen my fucks to give/I’ve got none I cannot live/with the pressure.”​

Aiko rose to prominence working with the likes of Drake and Kendrick Lamar, rappers who undercut the stereotypical machismo in hiphop and infused it with a fragile, personable and ultimately much needed introspection. Aiko is perhaps as important for the part she plays as a woman in RnB: neither seductress nor victim, she depicts a world where relationships require a steady equilibrium between two people, albeit one which seems, in the canon of her songs, more of a platonic ideal that a tangible reality.