Aural Fix: Hello Yello
Surrounded by Oakland’s hip hop charged music scene, Hello Yello, made up of brothers Dylan and Jaden Wiggins, along with their friend Martin Rodrigues, has taken a more alt rock music route. The trio’s punk and garage sounds come from growing up listening to the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Linkin Park and Soundgarden. Despite being nudged toward R&B, especially with their father, D’Wayne Wiggins, who was part of the ’90s R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné!, Hello Yello followed what comes naturally to them as musicians, an electrifying, renewed grunge rock sound.
Hello Yello is pretty fresh on the scene and has been putting out music as a band for about a year now. Making music was no accident for Rodrigues and the Wiggins brothers, who all attended the Oakland School for the Arts. There, they brushed shoulders with many big name actors and artists who were in their early beginnings, such as H.E.R. and Zendaya. It was while they were in school that Dylan and Jaden began making music with a pre-fame Kehlani. The Wiggins brother had originally joined forces with Kehlani and Zendaya to form the group Poplyfe, which went on to finish in fourth place on NBC’s hit show “America’s Got Talent,” in 2011.
It wasn’t until forming SMSHNG HRTS that the trio started playing together as a band, performing pop and R&B tunes. After some naming rights issues with the Smashing Pumpkins, Hello Yello came to fruition, leaving traces of R&B throughout their debut EP Love Wins— especially the feel good track, “Feel That Again.”
Amidst a music renaissance, merging emo and punk with hip hop and R&B, Hello Yello is taking their music to a whole new level. It’s not often lo-fi guitars, screamo vocals, funky bass lines and soulful drums collide together perfectly capturing the angst and energy of being young in such a rare way.
