"I think the biggest thing we can do as humans is just try to accept that we're not gonna feel good all the time," Willow Smith says, smiling sweetly.
We’re commiserating over a rough morning, and the 21-year-old exudes a blend of compassion and certainty — crucial factors in the DNA of her new album, COPINGMECHANISM, which finds Willow facing down demons personal and otherwise. On the record, and in life, Willow acknowledges every emotional response, and understands that the pain and anger can produce their own sphere of beauty as well. "We need to be grateful and try to connect, even through the hard times," she adds.
The daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow had to both develop her personhood and artistic self under the hot lights of the entertainment industry. Her first acting roles came in 2007 at age 7, but it was the mega smash "Whip My Hair'' two years later that could have locked her onto a pop path. A decade and a half later, Willow continues to evolve, unapologetically, embracing her full power in everything from spacey psychedelia to earnest R&B on her previous four releases. Her long-smoldering interest in rock music burns bright on COPINGMECHANISM, a record that spans post-punk edge to hard rock roar.
Willow’s voice and guitar buoy her into focus on the record, inviting you to sit right beside her through the journey. Lead single "maybe it’s my fault" exemplifies the extremes to which she has pushed both instruments. Pushed through a mesh of distortion, Willow cracks into a near scream, embracing the pain of a broken relationship over palm-muted guitar chug. Willow wrestles with the notes of her own music as if it’s tightening around her body, maneuvering deftly through her own craftsmanship. Though she sampled Radiohead way back in 2013 for "Sugar and Spice", songs like the spindly "Split" showcase the maturation of those headier influences into Willow’s own sound, filtering tight layered harmonies through limber electric guitar clouds.
As the release of COPINGMECHANISM neared — the album drops Oct. 7 — Willow spoke with GRAMMY.com about earning a new nickname from Primus’ Les Claypool, finding her most honest voice, the place "Whip My Hair" holds in her catalog, and the changes she’d like to see in the music industry.
With the release of your album less than a week away, how are you feeling about it?
I'm so happy to finally have this project coming out. It's some of the most honest work I've ever done and I'm excited for everyone to hear it.
Honesty would seem to be the operative word. Every track on the album feels like its own little world, all of them expressing their own emotion and depth but orbiting together.
Thank you. There were just so many emotions happening at the time and I really wanted the music, the production, and the lyrics to personify this feeling of push and pull and confusion, but also being at the exact same place at the right time.
Sometimes we're uncomfortable. Discomfort comes into our lives, but that discomfort is meant to honestly heal us and to help us become better people if we perceive it in the way that we are meant to. I wanted the music to have that feeling while also just being in its element, everything coming together when it needs to.
Do you pause when you're going through moments where you're feeling a little off, or do you push through and write through it?
It's all one thing for me, the emotions, the creation of the music, the writing of the lyrics. I want it to be one process so that it's as authentic as it can possibly be. I think that that is what makes music beautiful, is when we can plainly put our emotions there and make it into this beautiful fantasy world while still being very, very authentic.
But if the entire process needs to come together in one unified force, how do you then step out of it when you are looking to stretch yourself or look for inspiration?
Music follows me wherever I go. It follows me into different experiences. It follows me when I'm stagnant. It follows me at all times. If music is really a part of you, I don't feel like you feel like you have to compartmentalize. It's a part of your expression. It's a part of how you live your life. It's a lifestyle.
It would seem also that there's a lot of wide-ranging different influences across the rock world here, from post-punk edges to heavier guitar. Were you writing songs that necessitated exploring those different tones as a musician, or was it the other way around: exploring subgenres and writing from that experimentation?
I think the emotions came first, and then me wanting to explore the tones that could express those emotions. The most unique part about this album is I wanted to have those soft, melodic, kind of spooky harmonies, but also have that hard, bold, very bright guitar and rock sound. Mixing those softer emotions with those more heavier emotions was the beginning of me being like, "This is what I want the sound of this album to be."
During that time, I was feeling a lot of sadness, a lot of contemplation, but I was also feeling a lot of anger and a lot of confusion, and a lot of chaos was happening. I really wanted to express those two sides of myself coming together on the album.
Those emotions are so often deemed negative, but it doesn't feel that way here. The output is really important. As a musician, you can release it with a scream or a yell or a lyric, depending on your perspective.
Yes! Yes! You need to let it flow. That's why we make music, so that we can inspire people and we can let our emotions flow and move through them while also trying to change people's lives and uplift people. That's the most beautiful thing about being an artist.
When I listen to "curious/furious" and you sing that line about life looking dark and it's the only thing that we have, there's this beauty in acceptance — which feels like a really powerful summation of one of the album's themes.
Yeah, yeah. Because it's just human, it's natural, it's nature. The more that we can accept our humanity in ourselves and in others, that's a step towards changing the world.
A lot of the problems that we have on this planet come from us either not accepting the truth of what's right in front of us, or us not accepting the truth of what's right inside of us. Once we can accept how we feel inside, the beautiful, the ugly, the chaos, the calm, we can move into the world in a more compassionate state.
And art allows some people to digest that idea — more easily than reading an essay or listening to a politician.
Exactly. Change starts within. The change starts with us choosing to live a more compassionate life. There's a lot of steps that we need to take in order to make that a reality. And it's not just about being more compassionate to ourselves and our own mind, even though that's where it starts. It's about being more compassionate to others, being more compassionate to the planet, being more compassionate to people who maybe aren't compassionate to others or themselves.
Music has been at the center of some of the world's most beautiful cultural shifts. Music has also been at the center of countless amounts of individuals having an awakening and feeling seen or feeling like they're inspired to change their life.
Is that a part of the reason that the vocals feel so front and center on this album?
Thank goodness you said that, because I worked so hard.
I can tell! There's this moment on "maybe it's my fault" where the guitar and drums push really aggressively and then you've got this distorted, Bjork-esque delivery on the bridge.
It makes me feel so beautiful to be compared to Bjork! Thank you for doing that. [Laughs]
More than anything, she's someone who seems to tie into that raw expression that you were moving toward. I've heard that range from you before; it's something you've shown live.
Totally, but not in a recording. I worked really, really hard with my vocal coach for the technique. I really couldn't have sang these songs before — just the sheer vocal dexterity that these melodies called for. I really worked very hard to try to take my voice to the next level.
And I also worked really hard to try to be more vulnerable than I've ever been. In the past, I've been very vague about the experiences in my life that have led me to this point. But I feel like this album, I'm being very, very specific. I'm saying it like it is, and I feel like that's uncharacteristic for me. But I also really, really feel like I'm growing from that.
Just imagine if this was the delivery and then the subject didn't really have that same honesty. "Falling Endlessly" is another song that unites the delivery and tone.
With "Falling Endlessly", specifically with that breakdown bridge part, I wanted to give the song an oasis because in the whole song I'm kind of annoyed, like, "Your friends are coming over now, I never liked them, never did, and now I can not be sober, f— the small talk chat and sitting down." The whole song, I'm just not really vibing it. I'm just very irritated and expressing my irritation.
But then that part of the song gives you a moment to see the beauty in learning, like, "Hey, you might not like this person or you might think they're fake, but they have something to teach you. And it's not all bad." Taking that moment to be introspective, that was the real intention for that part of the song.
It's powerful to reach these realizations where you're at in your life. Your twenties are such a chaotic time and a formative time, and it seems here you are pushing it aside and just doing the work and focusing on yourself.
At a very young age, I learned that nothing else matters in life except for being in service to the people you love and who love you — and even the people who don't love you. You can love people who don't love you and you can be in service to them too. Just working on yourself and working on what really matters in your life and not half-assing your passions. I just try to bring that sentiment into my everyday life.
The only guest on the album is Yves Tumor, who is such a powerful voice and artist. I was so excited when I saw that.
He's so amazing. Oh my goodness. The fact that he's the one feature on this album honestly makes it that extra of a statement to me. He is another amazing Black rock star who is so unique. I've never met any other musician like him. And for him to be the one feature on this, I just feel like it was a really, really strong move.
I wanted this album to push the culture and to push the envelope of the music industry. He was just the perfect cherry on top of this cake to really bring it all together. He adds his undying inspiration and his undying forward motion of pushing the boundaries of what people think is possible for music and for people of color and just in general. He really brought so much momentum to the intention of the album.
I also saw you did that Primus cover on social media, which was amazing.
Les Claypool and Primus is everything. I love him.
He's the sweetest person ever. I spoke with him a few years ago, and he was chatting with his wife and casually eating pistachios. [Laughs]
Yes! He's just such a beautiful person. And the fact that he even noticed me and said that I was playing the guitar half okay, that just made me feel the best. And he gave me a nickname. I am now the certified "Young fiery lass." I'm very, very happy about that.
Whenever I see that pop up on your social media I have to read it in his voice!
I know! I have to have, like, a country accent with it. I have to try to do the Les Claypool accent.
Your guitar playing is gaining a lot of attention, beyond that Primus cover — which is especially great to see in such a white male-dominated field. That's something your mom pushed against with Wicked Wisdom as well. The rock guitar world is sadly full of some intense racism and sexism and gatekeeping. How important is the guitar as a tool and a symbol for your expression coming up against that?
When I first started playing the guitar, I was more in a folk area. I was playing a lot of Elliot Smith and learning a lot of those songs. But as I picked up the electric guitar and started to become more inspired by that sound, it naturally just pushed me into rock. And even though I had always had a really big love for rock since I was a little child, I feel like me being able to play it with my hands and really understand what it takes really inspired me. And I feel like that's why I'm making these rock albums. The guitar is infinite inspiration for me.
In terms of inspiration, was there any hesitation to reframing "Whip My Hair" live with your new perspective, as you’ve done recently? It's always been a song about empowerment and self-expression, so of course it makes sense. Was it just immediately something that you knew you wanted to do?
The last time I did "Whip My Hair" live, it was a capella. On my last headline tour, I did a rock version of it. Personally I like doing it a capella better because a song that people really, really love, they like to hear it how they heard it the first time. And when you change the production of it, even though they're still excited to hear it, it's just not the same. I don't really wanna do it with the same production as in the past. So doing it a capella leaves it up to their imagination.
It makes it more of a moment of nostalgia and connection and bookending my whole career together, and not a moment of, "Oh, I'm trying to revamp 'Whip My Hair'." Because that's not the case. "Whip My Hair" is always gonna be what it is and what it was. And it's beautiful because of that. I would rather just do it a capella and allow people to have that moment and put in the placeholders where they see fit.
That's also allowing you the grace to move with it, because it was so long ago. And you've changed and grown so much in that time. That's such a lovely way to allow yourself to move forward with a song.
Yeah. To play "Whip My Hair" in the same set that I play "maybe it's my fault," "curious/furious,, "hover like a GODDESS"— it just makes me feel just so grateful that everything can exist all at the same time and it makes sense.
Considering you have such a good grasp of yourself and your place in the music industry, is there an attribute that you think the industry needs more of?
Not only from the artists but from the people who support the artists in the business realm and other places that don't have so much to do with the art, this industry needs a lot more willingness to just tell the truth.
The willingness to not try to create the same artists again and again and again, and allow new and different things to take shape. To honor that instead of being like, "Oh, well this is popular so this is what you should be doing. Oh, well this is sexy, so this is what you should be wearing." Like, no. Let's create a new sexy. Let's create a new popular. Let's not hold on to these old ideas of what we thought was amazing in the past because that's always changing.
Artists usually know this, but the people who don't know this are the people who are supposed to be supporting the artists in many different verticals. So I would say some more evolution for those guys and gals.
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