However all that preteen consideration—Smith was simply 9 when “Whip My Hair” was launched—and the pressures that got here with it will definitely took a toll. She needed to take time away, a calculated retreat if you’ll. “There was a time the place it was actually, actually darkish,” she says. “I used to be making an attempt to run away from it in each single method that I might. Individuals would [ask], ‘Are you Willow Smith?’ And I would be like, ‘No.’ I’d simply bold-face lie. I did not make music for years. I wanted to determine who I’m.”
In 2012, Willow shaved her head for the primary time. “The vitality that your hair holds by your complete life, your whole unhappiness and your happiness and your confusion, your hair is on you endlessly. And whenever you shave it off, you are sort of bare. You are sort of like, you’ll want to be new now.”
Her time away from music was taken up by studying (Willow is a ebook nerd who lately loved The Daybreak of Every little thing by David Graeber and David Wengrow, and has co-authored a ebook of her personal, Black Protect Maiden), doing ballet, and practising martial arts like Krav Maga and Wushu (she nonetheless tussles with trusted mates). “I had to determine, once I’m sitting on my own and when there is not any one else round, what provides me pleasure?” she says. “It’s making music, studying and meditation, and being with my animals. And generally when shit is absolutely, actually darkish, I simply need to cry and coach myself by it.”
But no quantity of dancing, studying, meditating, and even pet love might absolutely silence the negativity of her interior voice. It echoed with rebukes. You are by no means going to be ok. Everybody solely thinks you are particular due to all of the issues that they’ve seen out of your mother and father. Nobody actually cares about you. You are a fraud. Every thought had its personal sting. “However that is simply because I am reflecting the fears and the issues that folks have mentioned to me,” she says, “not essentially my very own ideas. I am wrongly internalizing the negativity from the surface.”
That voice additionally drives her work ethic. Given her lineage, Willow is what some would name a nepo baby. Sure, there are doorways which have opened as a result of she has Smith as a final identify. Nonetheless, after some deliberation, we each agree that she doesn’t fairly match the invoice. First off, as a result of her dedication and inventive output aren’t precisely in step with nepo babyhood. Say what you want, however Willow doesn’t coast.
