Furthermore, she added that she wants to be an inspiration to Black girls who want to enter the rock space. “ were the only three, Black rock singers that I knew of, so really I just wanted to make this album as an ode to them,” she says. In a space that is largely white and male-dominated, WILLOW wanted her album to pay homage to the Black rock artists who influenced her like Fefe Dobson, Alexis Brown from metalcore outfit Straight Line Stitch, and of course, her mother.
Ultimately, for WILLOW, making a pop-punk album was personal. And as she strengthened her voice, it finally was.Īlso Read Watch Willow Perform ‘Curious/Furious’ and ‘Ur a Stranger’ on SNL Frankly, she was used to being misunderstood, she just wanted to make sure the quality of her vocal delivery was up to her own standards. For a long time, she thought her “voice couldn’t really handle the rock world.” “It was more about my voice and less about if other people would accept me,” she notes. “I wanted to shake up in a different way, and I knew that I wanted to just have fun.”īut as an artist who was specifically trained to sing pop and R&B, it took WILLOW a while to be comfortable singing in a “new” genre. “I just knew that I wanted to do something different,” the multihyphenate explains. Following their exhibition, WILLOW went straight into quarantine and found herself gravitating towards the sound of what would become her fifth studio album lately I feel EVERYTHING (due July 16). Then there w as the 10-track, rock-leaning album titled The Anxiety WILLOW released in 2020 with her partner Tyler Cole, which was accompanied by a performance art exhibit at MOCA in Los Angeles where the duo endured a 24-hour anxiety attack trapped in a box. In the early 2000s, WILLOW’s mother, actress Jada Pinkett-Smith, formed nü-metal band Wicked Wisdom, which has been a throughline of inspiration for the singer throughout her life. If you’re surprised by WILLOW’s pivot to punk-rock, you haven’t been paying attention.
And that has remained as her entire foundation for making music. Even since the release of her debut single “Whip My Hair” in 2010 - a catchy ode to individualism - her message has been the same: “Be yourself, do it, unapologetically and inspire other people to do it, too,” WILLOW tells SPIN over the phone from an undisclosed location in Malibu. But at 20, the artist who goes simply by WILLOW, is ready to try something new: being a rock star.īut her foray into the genre is nothing less than authentic. There’s not much that Willow Smith hasn’t done.
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