My first introduction to Willow Smith is her voice. I step into the nondescript studio where we are meant to meet, and I immediately hear a warm, deep, calm tone filling the room. Smith is recording an audiobook and slipping in and out of characters seamlessly, the intonation changing to become more gruff or forceful or excited or sad depending on whom she is looking to portray. Then, she pauses and runs it again with the emphasis on slightly different words or syllables.
Occasionally, the character that Willow slips into is a version of herself: the boss. Her voice breaks through to request the producer do a playback or to ask the director for the pronunciation of a word. It’s all very serious and meticulous. Willow is at work. Every once in a while, she’ll sing a little tune as a vocal break but that’s the only hint of who is behind the disembodied words.
I’m not sure what to expect when the door to the closet-size booth opens. But what I see is a young, fresh-faced woman wrapped in a blanket. As she unfurls herself from her cozy position and stretches, she transforms into an energetic, excited youth—her final character of the day. She immediately asks about my flight and goes in for a hug. This woman could be any of my younger cousins. For a minute, I’ve got whiplash. She’s taken off her work persona so quickly. Her true voice is bouncy and jovial with many a “dude” and “100%” and “totally” and “bro” peppered into the dialogue.
This is the voice that few people get to hear. Willow has been in the spotlight since she was nine years old, performing her hit, “Whip My Hair” and singing on tour with Justin Bieber. So, she is really good at the work thing. In fact, her team warned me that if they didn’t tell her to come out, Willow would stay in the audio booth for hours. That level of commitment to her craft, be it writing or singing, is what defines her latest era. She uses words like “devotion” and “expansion” to describe what she is seeking in her career.
In listening to her recent single, “Symptom of Life,” from her new album, empathogen, it feels like she has discovered something new in her voice. She has shed the youthful persona of her teens and settled into womanhood. “I just grew up a little bit, and I really am starting to figure out what kind of musician I really want to be.” It was hearing Chet Baker for the first time that sparked her desire to add emotional depth to her sound. “After that moment, I [thought],‘Damn, I need to start practicing more. I need to start really sharpening my musicianship. That's really the vibe of this era and this time in my life is just becoming a better musician.”
She notes that among her musical influences for this project were Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, and Sarah Vaughan. It’s a lot of jazz, and that comes out in the new music. “I'm settling into more of who I am. And that doesn't mean that screaming and shredding on the guitar is not who I am because it is, but I'm going a little bit deeper. It's about being a well-rounded musician more than anything for me and not being pigeonholed into any specific genre.”
Willow had to find the boss in her voice to make this genre shift happen. “Everyone wanted me to make another rock album. I just always do the thing that everyone thinks is a bad idea. People thought that doing a rock album was going to be a bad idea, and then it turned out to be a good idea, and so I just have to trust myself because you live and die by your own hand. That's the life of an artist.”
She recalls when she made the decision to be a singer. She was in her brother Jaden’s movie trailer in China (he was filming The Karate Kid with Jackie Chan and Taraji P. Henson) when she wrote her first song using Garageband. Soon after, she announced her plans to her parents. As you might expect, the adults were a little skeptical of an eight-year-old’s big dream. “As a young kid, I'm up on my cloud. I thought they were being such Debbie Downers. They're acting so serious. They were like, ‘Okay, we just want you to know that if you really want to sing, this is not going to be easy.’ And I [thought], What? It was so easy. I just made a song. Little did I know that the shit is a deep lineage, that when you add to that lineage, you must come correct.” She would eventually discover that maybe Mr. and Mrs. Downer had a point. (Being the only daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith is a privilege that cuts both ways.) The songs, the staging, the tour stops were all planned out by others. It was as if she was handed a manual, How to Be a Pop Star 101. And her job was just to read along.
“I didn't write the songs,” she says of her first albums. “I didn't produce the music. And now I [think] I need to write the songs. I need to produce the music. If I'm not doing that, what's the use of this?” It’s a creative right that she had to fight for. “I've always been afraid of being perceived as difficult,” she says. “In this society, a woman who knows what she wants is always perceived as being ‘difficult.’ I'm not being difficult, I just know what I want. And I'm willing to sacrifice the chillness of the moment for trying to get to that goal.”
For the new album, she settled into collaborations with folks like St. Vincent and Jon Batiste on the credits list. “Collaboration, I'm starting to realize, is how you make the best art. I used to be so afraid to allow myself to collaborate with people because I want my ideas to be my ideas. And I'm afraid of somebody trying to micromanage my idea, which I've experienced a lot. But you grow up and you realize it's actually a really beautiful experience to [see] the seed of my idea brought to life by this person paying attention and nurturing the idea.”
Collaboration may be a passion in music, but when it comes to beauty, Willow has always been in control. Growing up, she was given the freedom to explore dying her hair and shaving her head. “My mother allowed me to do that because she strongly believed that being able to express myself in that way was very important. And I completely agree with her because it helped me figure out who I am.” When I allude to the fact that she often represents traditional beauty standards, Willow balks.
“Traditional, really? I represent certain parts of traditional beauty, but then there are other parts that I don't represent. My legs are never shaved. I always have hairy-ass armpits like, I'm brown, my hair is nappy. That's why I think I straddle a very interesting position in the beauty standard world.”
I ask if she was scarred by the words, “I whip my hair back and forth.” The refrain of her 2010 debut single came at a time when women with natural hair were fighting for their special brand of beauty to be seen by mainstream media. “I was totally scarred. But so many Black girls and women were inspired by that. It's about people relating to you and you being someone that they can look at and be like, ‘I see you. We are inspiring each other.’ When I look at women from all different walks of life, all different skin tones who are authentic to themselves and they see their beauty, that inspires me. And I'm inspiring them because I'm paying attention to them.”
But all that preteen attention—Smith was just nine when “Whip My Hair” was released—and the pressures that came with it eventually took a toll. She had to take time away, a calculated retreat if you will. “There was a time where it was really, really dark,” she says. “I was trying to run away from it in every single way that I could. People would [ask], ‘Are you Willow Smith?’ And I'd be like, ‘No.’ I would just bold-face lie. I didn't make music for years. I needed to figure out who I am.”
In 2012, Willow shaved her head for the first time. “The energy that your hair holds through your whole life, all of your sadness and your happiness and your confusion, your hair is on you forever. And when you shave it off, you're kind of naked. You're kind of like, you need to be new now.”
Her time away from music was taken up by reading (Willow is a book nerd who recently enjoyed The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow, and has co-authored a book of her own, Black Shield Maiden), doing ballet, and practicing martial arts like Krav Maga and Wushu (she still tussles with trusted friends). “I had to figure out, when I'm sitting by myself and when there's no one else around, what gives me joy?” she says. “It is making music, reading and meditation, and being with my animals. And sometimes when shit is really, really dark, I just have to cry and coach myself through it.”
Yet no amount of dancing, reading, meditating, or even puppy love could fully silence the negativity of her inner voice. It echoed with rebukes. You're never going to be good enough. Everyone only thinks you're special because of all the things that they've seen from your parents. No one really cares about you. You're a fraud. Each thought had its own sting. “But that's just because I'm reflecting the fears and the things that people have said to me,” she says, “not necessarily my own thoughts. I'm wrongly internalizing the negativity from the outside.”
That voice also drives her work ethic. Given her lineage, Willow is what some would call a nepo baby. Yes, there are doors that have opened because she has Smith as a last name. However, after some deliberation, we both agree that she doesn’t quite fit the bill. First off, because her determination and creative output are not exactly consistent with nepo babyhood. Say what you like, but Willow doesn’t coast.
“I truly believe that my spirit is a strong spirit and that, even if my parents weren't who they were, I would still be a weirdo and a crazy thinker,” she says. “I definitely think that a little bit of insecurity has driven me harder because people do think that the only reason I'm successful is because of my parents. That has driven me to work really hard to try to prove them wrong. But nowadays, I don't need to prove shit to anybody.’"
The second reason she doesn’t fit the nepo mold is more fundamental: because she is a Black woman in America. And no matter if your parents are on billboards or you’ve been the face of a Chanel or Mugler campaign (which Willow has, most recently signing a beauty contract with Dior), you can still walk into places and get “put in your place.”
“There have been some experiences where I went into a place that I have worked in the past and my picture could even be up on the wall, and they treat me like, ‘This is a little bit out of your price range’ or ‘You don't really belong here,’ ” she says. “Being Black in America, even with privilege, which I'm never going to deny that I have, you're still Black. And I love being Black. People would look at me and [say], ‘Okay, well, her parents are this and this and that, but she still is like me. She still has brown skin.’ And we all know that that doesn't exempt you from anything, and that's a place of connection.”
This connection is one that we share. As Black women, we both grew up in households with parents and grandparents who put our safety above all else. “My parents were always so extreme about when you meet someone, look them in the eyes,” she says. “There's no, ‘whatever.’ Be very respectful [with] the way that you speak. I respect that because there's not a lot of that these days.” It’s the same speech I was given by my Southern grandparents, one that Willow remembers hearing from her Gammie, too. Yes, it’s common courtesy, but it’s also a protective mechanism for Black kids and akin to the “you have to work twice as hard” speech. “Obviously, there's so much trauma and darkness that comes along with that,” she says, “but what we've created and how we've chosen to protect our families and protect each other, I think that's really beautiful.”
As meaningful as that sense of connection might be, Willow still describes herself as a solo traveler. “I've always been kind of a loner,” she says. “As a kid, it worried me because I [thought], Is it going to be like this forever? Am I just going to be alone? I've always had a different mind. I would go to my mom and [say], ‘I'm not sure if this is going to work out. How do you think this is going to go?’ And she would always say, ‘You'll find your tribe.’ And I feel like I found my tribe, not necessarily in specific people, but I meet people all around the world who have dedicated their lives to being in service to humanity, in all different ways—through music, through philanthropy, through activism, through writing. I actually don't feel alone. Wherever I go, I'm going to be attracted to that energy of someone who is devoted to something in their life.”
For Willow, that something is using her voice and platform to advocate for reproductive rights, for the Earth, and to cultivate loving vibes. “I want to be a servant of love,” she says, “even if that means fighting for things to change so that love can bloom more in the world. I want to be the kind of person that doesn't have to say words and can just look at somebody and they just feel the deep love that I'm constantly putting out. I want it to change how they think, and I want it to make them love themselves more.”
The most powerful message Willow sends isn’t something she says. It’s something her latest tattoo conveys. The word “acceptance” is written vertically down her throat, and she says her next tattoo will be “dissent” running down the back of her neck. “Because you need both,” she says. “When it comes to emotional things, you have to accept it. Dissent is like revolt, fighting back. There are very few things that you need to physically fight for, like the right to be yourself. But acceptance is a beautiful medicine.”
