Psychedelic drugs temporarily allowed her to find a sense of meaning in her life and helped her reconnect with the being she felt she was prior to her brother’s death. Aiko told the LA Times that after her brother’s death, she struggled to navigate through her feelings.
“TRIP” translated the mental, emotional, and physical highs and lows of recreational drugs like marijuana, mushrooms, and acid into lyrics and sound. The album’s opening track “LSD” introduces the concept of her album while she reflects on her first time experimenting with acid, which she took in an effort to spiritually connect with her brother. It’s an intensely personal album created upon the foundation of grief and experimental drugs, and while the sound as a whole lacked growth in Aiko’s musical abilities, her openness and raw emotion saved this work from feeling too repetitive. Chill, the burning of sage can help one achieve sagacity.In the artist’s most personal works of art to date, the creation of “TRIP” came during and after Jhené Aiko’s path to enlightenment after her brother’s death in 2012. Sage is believed to have many mental benefits.
Sagacity is an acute mental discernment and keen practical sense. Every time I heard this song I wondered what sagacity means. Definitions are so important when you want to contextualize something and better understand it. This part of the song comes from his contribution to the outro. While the two were not close during her childhood, they have grown closer in her adulthood. Indica is more physically sedative and relaxing while Sativa has an opposite impact, leaving the person feeling more energetic.Īnalysis: Crushing and cutting a line are typically used to describe breaking down drugs, like cocaine.Īnalysis: When I first heard this song, I thought that a woman was doing the speaking in the outro, but it is actually Jhené’s father, Dr. Jukai is also the formal initiation into the Zen Buddhist way.Īnalysis: For all those who aren’t familiar with different types of marijuana strains, there are three: Sativa, Indica, and hybrid. This place is sometimes called the Jukai which is the name of the song. The Sea of Trees, a well-known suicide forest in Japan is referenced. A suffering and pain that some may even equate to being hell-like. A great deal of suffering and pain can be created when human beings lose someone who they are attached to. This can be interpreted to include the attachment that one may have to other people. The Second Noble Truth states that the origin of suffering is attachment, specifically, the desire to have or desire not to have. If I died would it even make a sound in the sea of trees” – JukaiĪnalysis: The idea that hell is other people comes from the Buddhist Second Noble Truth. I tried but my feet kept touchin’ the ground Or the lack thereof, and their lack of love Hell is not a certain evil, hell is other people Ironically, in order to reach the heavens she has do something that her brother warned her not to do, use drugs.
“Came all this way to break every promise and doīut those things bring me closer to you, yeah” – LSDĪnalysis: The entire song, LSD, is about Jhené using LSD in an attempt to reach the heavens and speak with her deceased brother. Let’s take a closer look at the lyrics of a very innovative album that is inspired by the passing of her brother in 2012… The visual illusion of the album cover is enough to make someone feel like they’re on a drug induced trip. ‘Trip’, Jhené Aiko’s September release, adds a psychedelic twist to the R&B style that she is well accustomed to.