There’s always things that I am being inspired by, or new song lyrics and new stories that I feel like I want to tell. It’s important for me to always take some time for myself, to live and experience life. Life is always going and going and going. We need to continue to do this.Īiko: I think a big part of it, too, is taking those breaks. So that’s what I want to do, for 12-year-old me.Īiko: I think you’re doing it, for sure. I’m a very MTV-era girl, and I never saw an Asian pop star, where I was like, “OK, she looks like me.” I felt that was impossible. You definitely paved a lot of ways and did amazing things.
That’s what I want to do, for 12-year-old me.” - CL “I never saw an Asian pop star where I was like, ‘She looks like me.’ I felt that was impossible. “I chose to do that, going outside the system.” “I have an album coming out independently,” CL notes.
CL began her career in the K-pop system, as part of the enormously popular group 2NE1, and continued that success after striking out as a solo artist her 2016 song “Lifted,” which riffs on a classic Wu-Tang Clan track, made the charts in the U.S., and today, on October 20th, she’s releasing her full-length debut, Alpha, which fuses pop, hip-hop, R&B, and EDM with a joyful sense of borderless self-discovery. Though this is their first time meeting, they immediately find a bond, learning they share a sign (“When I found out you were a Pisces, I said, ‘Yes!’ ” Aiko exclaims) and an outlook on making music that doesn’t conform to any set genre or industry mold.Ī Los Angeles native whose background includes Japanese, European, and African American roots, Aiko got her start in the R&B world, and she’s since been nominated for Grammys in six different categories, including Album of the Year, for her 2020 album, Chilombo, a post-breakup exploration that suggests a modern update of classic quiet-storm balladry. Both artists started making music at a young age, and they’re both still reaching brand-new peaks in their careers.
The South Korean pop singer, 30, is already doing her part to meet that demand - as is the woman she’s talking to, Jhené Aiko, 33. “I really want a lot more Asian pop stars,” says CL. Each story in this year’s series will appear in our November 2021 print issue, hitting stands on November 2nd. Welcome to Rolling Stone’s 2021 Musicians on Musicians package, the annual franchise where two great artists come together for a free, open conversation about life and music.
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