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Jhené Aiko Is the Alchemist of Her Own Spiritual Healing on Album of the Year Contender 'Chilombo'
Ellise Shafer, provided by
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For Jhené Aiko, a Grammy nominee in three categories, songwriting and healing are cosmically connected. No, really: For her album of the year contender “Chilombo,” the 32-year-old singer-songwriter incorporated crystal sound bowls or “singing bowls” — a Tibetan tradition in which the round vessels, when played, vibrate at a certain frequency connected to a chakra — into each of its 20 tracks.
Buddhist monks have used sound bowls for centuries to aid in relaxation and meditation. Aiko discovered them when she was a teenager. “I was really using them for myself — like therapy — an alternative to self-medicating and not dealing with how I’m feeling,” she recalls. “I just found them very relaxing and soothing, and even addictive to play, like literally the motion of playing the sound bowls felt good to me.”