Noah “40” Shebib recently spoke about Jhene Aiko, a vocalist he feels has a “beautiful” voice. During a XXL interview published yesterday (February 20), Shebib compared Aiko favorably to one singer, while noting another vocalist’s stronger “powerhouse” abilities.
“She has a very beautiful, very unique voice,” Shebib said. “She’s not a big powerhouse Beyonce vocalist, but she has something like Aaliyah. She has a tone that’s beautiful, recognizable and very much her.”
Shebib worked with Beyonce on the Drake-assisted “Mine,” a cut off the singer’s self-titled 2013 album.
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Shebib and Aiko worked together on Drake’s “From Time,” a selection off the rapper’s Nothing Was The Same album, which was released in 2013.
Shebib has also worked on a posthumous Aaliyah album, one that he was happy to be a part of at first. However, in January, Shebib said the experience ended up being a “sad” one.
“The world reacting to Drake’s involvement so negatively, I just wanted nothing to do with it,” Shebib said at the time. “That was a very sad experience for me. I was naïve to the politics surrounding Aaliyah’s legacy and a bit ignorant to Timbaland’s relationship and everybody else involved and how they’d feel. Tim said to me ‘Don’t stop, make the album.’ I think that was Tim taking the position of, ‘I’m not going to stop you. If you’re not going to do it, that’s your decision.’ But ultimately, I wasn’t comfortable and didn’t like the stigma. We released [‘Enough Said’], but I was seven songs deep. [Aaliyah’s] mother saying, ‘I don’t want this out’ was enough for me. I walked away very quickly.”
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Drake discussed the defunct Aaliyah project during his September CRWN interview.
“Before things went downhill with it, I was actually working with my dream collaboration,” Drake said of his work on an Aaliyah posthumous album. “Me and 40 were working on this Aaliyah album that kind of got blown out of proportion. There are records with me and Aaliyah that no one has ever heard and they’re really good.”
RELATED: Noah “40” Shebib Wasn’t Comfortable Working On Aaliyah Album After Timbaland Talk
