song choice

Stranger is a song written and recorded from the 2011 album 'Sailing souls' by Jhene Aiko ,Aiko stated that she was going through trouble at this period in her life saying "At the time I was going through so much in my life that it was so easy to write the songs. I had just had a baby and I was dealing with baby father issues and I had a boyfriend. The songs were just coming and coming. I just had so much to say'.

I chose this song due to its enigmatic and metaphorical lyrical content,as the listener was left to decode the meaning behind her songs and take it upon themslefs to relate it to their lives. Jhene sings relatable topics which help people in the same situtation think and feel a sense of togetherness and that they are not alone. This was particularly important as I consciously did not want a simplistic song with no valuble meaning behind it

Jhene also mentions how the whole “sailing souls” Album,a lot of people are still confused about what that means, and it just means to stay true to yourself and go with what you feel. Feeling are really the only thing that is real. I kinda want to convey the message to just be yourself. Don’t ever lose yourself for whatever reason—because you want to make more money, because you want to be prettier or whatever. I’m not a slave to anyone; I’m sailing my soul instead of selling it.“ Jhene's song "Stranger”, which lyrically talks of a "woman going through similar issues of the heart, but seemingly with different men".

'Stranger' was one of the first songs Jhene recorded for “Sailing Souls” she was inspired by a tweet. The singer tweeted something along the lines of “same strangers” and Mac (½ of the production team “Fisticuffs”) brought the tweet to her attention and was like, he saw her tweet something the other day aswell. She then expand on that by writing a song about what she meant by that. This can be described as a light bulb moment. The beat was done from scratch by the Fisticuffs while Aiko wrote the lyrics, they both shared the same vibe and went back and forth until they had the structure. The song basically wrote itself Jhene states how she had just gotten herself out of a situation with a “perfect stranger.” Someone she thought she really liked and thought she really knew. But in all actuality neither of them really knew each other at all. She realized that he was the same as all the other men she had been involved with and in a sense , was just the same as them; wanting the same thing. So we are all the same strangers, in a sense. Initially, the song was centered around the fact that she was intimate with someone she thought she knew so well, but really didn’t. The song took different forms as she wrote it and started to recall different feelings and situations. So there are many layers to this song as with most of her songs .

This video is Jhene Aiko's song 'Stranger' alongside her music video for the song.

An in depth analysis of the lyrics in 'Stranger'. A way to gain a deeper understanding of the song

This is our initial planning we separated the song and planned out how we was going to shoot the music video and also brief descriptions of our narrative story on the side to helps us if we went off track.