Switched on Pop - Turns out Willow Smith rocks

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

Willow Smith has a new Paramore-inspired emo-slash-pop punk track with a formidable drum groove powered by Travis Barker. Over churning guitars she sneers at fake friends: "smile in my face, then put your cig out on my back." As Nate and Charlie headbanged along to we found ourselves asking "why did we sleep on Willow Smith?" Maybe because we had not taken Willow seriously, knowing her only as the nine (!) year-old singer behind the precocious hit "Whip My Hair" back in 2010. In the ensuing decade, your hosts missed out on the rise of a talented musician. Her slow-burn, consciousness-expanding, galaxy-brain funk track "Wait A Minute!" from 2015 showcased the voice of a full-fledged artist. So why couldn't we hear her? Whether because we perceived nepotism or industry sleight-of-hand as the cause of her success, or maybe because we just didn't think a celebrity kid could also have anything to say worth hearing. Whoops. And it's not just Willow. Turns out the whole Pinkett-Smith clan have discographies worth taking a closer listen to. Who knew Jaden was sampling 1930s jazz wailer Cab Calloway? Or that Jada fronted a death metal band who got booed for being Black in a white genre? Or that the much-maligned "Getting' Jiggy Wit It" by Big Willie Style himself....actually bangs? Songs discussed: Willow Smith - Transparent Soul, Wait A Minute!, Whip My Hair Osamu - Koroneko No Tango Jordy - Dur dur d'être bébé! Wicked Wisdom - Bleed All Over Me Jaden Smith - Icon Cab Calloway - Hi De Ho Man Will Smith - Gettin' Jiggy Wit It Sister Sledge - He's the Greatest Dancer The Bar-Kays - Sang and Dance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch Don Pop. I'm a musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Songwriter Charlie Harding. One thing I love about making this show with you is challenging my expectations about music. Something that's happened again and again. You know, whether we're listening to Harry Stiles or Olivia Rodriguez or Lil Nye.

Oz X. Often I find I come into an episode with some preconceived notion of an artist and leave with a completely different view of them. Yeah. So when I saw that Willow Smith had a new pop punk emo metal track with Travis Barker, I have to be honest that my first reaction was, I think I probably rolled my eyes. I think I probably exhaled. Right. And I was just like Okay. What? Why? Why is this? This is silly. I'm not going to like this. This is stupid. I haven't heard a note of it. Yeah. But I think this isn't cool.

Yeah. So, let's challenge that assumption today. I want to dig into this track and I want to get to know this artist because I realize I have, I think, a lot of opinions about Willow Smith and I really don't know a thing about her. Okay, except obviously that she's the daughter of Jada and Will Smith. So let's listen, let's learn, and let's see if we might flip our expectations once more. Her new song is called Transparent Soul.

When I listen to this, I think a lot of my preconceived notions went out the window. I probably thought she was, this was like some Smith family nepotism, maybe that she was like too young to know how to, rock and roll, that she wasn't really a serious musician. I mean, I clearly came with a lot of baggage to this track, and then it was all just washed away in the cathartic emo and anthems of this chorus. I really like this song. What about it is Palline you in?

There's a certain kind of sneer that you need to bring to this genre. When you're listening to this, you need a picture, the singer, looking so angry and dismissive and just using this music to like unload all of their onks under the world. Yeah, the way you're just grabbing your whole face is squeezed trying to just show all of that like, oh, yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, I think listening to it is in turn for me a form of catharsis after a really rough year. I'm like, I'm feeling that anxiety. I'm feeling that onks. And this song lets me just expiate all of that. And then we have the drums from Travis Barker, which are like... Blake 182 fame and a dozen other productions.

They're like war drums. I mean, this guy just hits the drum harder than, I think, pretty much anyone else with a pair of drumsticks. And from the very first strike of this song, it's just like... In your face. Yeah, it's like a battle. The drums have all of that war cry. the guitar though is more subtle yeah it's it's got the feeling it's where the feeling it's like you have the anger and you got the and you got that um the sorrow i love that yeah the guitar is like by

contrast kind of mellow kind of melodic there's a lot of uh play of extremes in the song that also comes to the fore when we get to the chorus all of the sudden that driving rhythm pukit checka Chika, chika, chika. It kind of slows down to this kind of half-tempo churn. It's very dramatic. Let's take a listen. Part of what's cool about this recording is that it doesn't sound like it was done in the fanciest Hollywood studio. Maybe it was.

But her vocal is almost distorting the microphone capsule. It feels like very raw, could have been a first take kind of feel. it has the lack of polish that you want for this genre. Totally. I agree. You know, when I get to that chorus, I can hear her sort of stretching out and leaving it all on the floor, and the whole feel of the song changes.

And then at the end of the chorus, we snap back in, and it's like that anger, that angst, that rage is back. To me, this song is a very effective retrieval of a certain, yeah, pop punk, emo sound. And it has shades of My Chemical Romance and Paramour and these bands that you might think someone like Willis Smith, who's 20 years old, would just be like too young to be familiar with. But when I listen, I'm like, no, this is clearly someone who is a student and a fan of this music and is like dutifully and honestly incorporating those influences into those songs, including getting, you know, a drummer from that moment to actually play on the track. Like, this feels authentic to me.

And when I step back, I realize that I think Willow Smith is exactly trying to challenge our expectations. Right. Who's allowed to? Who's allowed to? Is a 20-year-old black woman who, up till now, is mainly known for, like, R&B music allowed to come out with a song like this? Mm-hmm. Like, that's really what I think I was reacting to. Mm-hmm.

So she's done her job with this. song and that kind of provocation has made me want to get to know her a little better and her music because I realized again I don't know much about her I don't either no in order to do so we got to jump back about a decade ago to when she debuted her first song which was with my hair this is the one thing I know I love this track let's let's spin it it's a fun song man it's still it still moves me. And I think I forgot kind of how chaotic this song is. Yeah. There's a lot happening. For sure. It actually has a very similar sort of drumming angst to it. Yeah. I would not have, again, pegged that as like one of her defining sounds, but I totally get that. This song gives you

that same feeling of like just letting it all out, letting it all hang on the floor. There's a lot of emotional through line between these two songs. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't really, I don't have much hair to whip. You could, you could really whip it. It's grown out. It's been a minute. Yeah, you could, like, do some damage with that, with those gorgeous locks. Okay, focus. Willow whip my hair. This song banged. It was a hit, you know?

This was on the billboard charts. And do you know how old she was when it came out? I'm going to guess 11. Nine. What? She was nine years old. That blows my little mind. Well, I mean, I also sets up that expectation of, like, well, obviously, you had some connections.

And I think, which is one of the things that you're bringing to the table. Like not any nine-year-old gets to release a song and make it on the billboard. Like, yeah. Right. And I think that's a lot of pressure. I mean, there's very few artists to really break into the pop industry at that age. I mean, we've got immediately what comes to mind for me is like Stevie Wonder recording fingertips in, I think, 1963 at the age of 12, which was a number one pop hit. Right.

And I think of Michael Jackson with the Jackson. in five recording I want you back sometime in the 70s which also was the number one hit and he was 11 Wow. It makes you think of like the classical world lots of childhood prodigies you have like Yo-Yo Ma right who

was performing at a very young age Yeah and you have Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who was like 12 when he wrote his first opera I think And they're also you think about like the 90s The Star Search era of like you know Beyonce was quite young and you know even though the the Mickey Mouse Club and what Brittany and Christina were also quite young when they were getting into that.

And probably took a minute before they then had their solo careers. Right. Okay. So this is a thing. I don't want to overstate it. It's not super unusual. But what I would, I kind of went on this deep dive because I was like, nine years old. Is Willow Smith the youngest artist to ever chart with a Billboard hit?

I'm guessing no. I thought the answer is yes, but you're right. It's not. There are a few examples of even younger performers. What did you find? Okay, one is, I don't know if this totally counts because it wasn't on the billboard charts. This was on like the Japanese equivalent of the billboard charts, but I had to share it. It's an artist named Osamu, and it's the song Karuneko no tango, which means black cat tango.

Okay, so Osamu was six years old when he recorded that in 1969. But that wasn't on the billboard. So Willow's so far is still the youngest. But I think I might have a few younger artists. One is the French singer named Jordi, who had a hit in 192 with Due Doe D'Etre Bebe. I think you mean 1992, but what does the French translate into? Which means it's hard to be a baby at the tender age of four. These are a totally different category, though.

These are novelty songs. Okay. Let me throw one more at you. What do you got? Probably the youngest person to ever be featured on a Billboard charting song is, it shouldn't even be a surprise. Blue Ivy Carter. On Jay-Z's track, Glory, a sample of her when she was just a few hours old. I love it.

It sounds kind of like Blue and Jay are in conversation because Jay, of course, has his personal calling card the, and Blue Ivy has, whee. I mean, yeah. So that's going to be hard to beat, you know, literally like a few hours old and you're on a chart, you know, Billboard charting song. But you're right, you're right. Willow is in a different category. She's an artist, you know, and she is driving that song. And it's her voice you're listening to.

And at nine years old, that's pretty extraordinary. And it creates a certain amount of pressure. Right. And Willow Smith was forced into this pop machine that she did not want to be a part. I mean, she even had like kind of a falling out with her parents. I don't know that. Yeah, she didn't want to go on a world tour. She didn't want to be the whip my hair girl.

In fact, she shaved her head in protest. That's awesome. Amazing, you know. And I think you can see how she got from there to this transparent soul track. You know, this was like she had to find herself a little bit. I think she had to find her voice, find her artistry. Right. And I think one important step in that evolution was her track, wait a minute.

Right, from 2015. And this was a song that didn't chart on the Billboard, but has sort of become a sleeper hit. Like it's racked up a ton of streams on Spotify. It is not the kind of bite-sized hook of with my hair. It's kind of this psychedelic, trippy neo-funk sound. It's uncategorizable. We should take a little. listen. Oh, I like it immediately. Give me those synths and guitars. Kind of this mid-tempo.

Yeah, yeah. We're not whipping hair. You know, I really like her voice. Yeah. It reminds me, it has this sort of like throatiness that reminds me of a style that was very popular in the 90s. It's like a little Alanis-Morissette vibe or something. Yeah, a little bit. She has a, there's a variety of timbers that she uses. Oh, yeah. She really modulates the way that she sings depending on the word, the phrase, the section of the song. I totally agree. It's her own voice this time.

You know, when we listen to Wip My Hair, it's like maybe she was channeling Rihanna. Yeah, Rihanna. Here it's like, whoa, this is Willow. This sounds like no one else. It's kind of weird. Like you said, she plays a timbre and stretches out certain vowels and whips them back. I like it. It's really cool.

It's very unique. And, of course, the lyrics are also like delving into this new territory. You know, I left my consciousness in the sixth dimension. It's like, this is someone who is not just concerned with like the worldly corporeal experience, but this kind of intergalactic mind-altered reality. That's cool. I also like that the way that they produce her vocal is not perfectly auto-tuned. In a way that, again, it has that aesthetic of like, hey, this is just me.

I'm coming in here, laying down a vocal. this is the song. I think I hear that too. It hasn't been sanded down to perfection. And I wonder if there's even a reference to whip my hair in here. I mean, we have a lyric that goes, run my hands through your hair. You want to run your fingers through mine. But my dread's too thick.

And that's all right. So it's like this is maybe reclaiming some of her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Agency. I'm not sure. No, for sure. It's like you want to have control over what I'm doing with my hair based on both the expectations of the song that I set up when I was young,

but also the expectations around who owns black women's hair, who gets to touch it. And so she's making, there are multiple layers to her commentary in this one line. I think it's powerful. So from whip my hair to wait a minute and now transparent soul, what's in between is she started learning how to play the guitar. She got one of these St. Vincent models.

of guitars, and it's specially made for the female form, as I understand. Whereas conventional guitars are like molded to a male body, these guitars are shaped in a way that make it

easier for women to play. Right. Yeah. And when I listen to Transparent Soul, I hear both the kind of defiance of whip my hair. I hear the expanse of consciousness of wait a minute, and I hear this emo punk guitar-driven sound that she's been working on.

There's a continuity here. And she felt like this was a risk to put this song at. She said, I never felt like I could sing that kind of music because I was always trained to sing R&B and pop. I realized that it's not my voice that can't sing this kind of music. I was afraid to sing this kind of music because I wasn't sure what people would think. And then I'd come along and just fall right into that trap. Oh, yep. Oops.

Oops. But listening to Willow has forced me to challenge. my expectations. Expectations of what black women are supposed to sing and play. And she's not alone in this because she comes from a family, a Pinkett Smith clan that has been challenging musical expectations. And I think if I'm going to do Willow credit, I think we need to address the whole Smith family corpus, which we'll do after the break.

Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready?

Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue.

President Trump is now targeting predominantly Democratic cities for ice race. and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated.

My sense is that people want order at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Willow's love of punk and emo and metal didn't come out of nowhere. It came from her mom, Jada Pinkett Smith, who I learned was in a new metal band in the early 2000s. I had no idea.

Called Wicked Wisdom. That's awesome. Made up entirely of people of color. Let's listen to their track, Bleed All Over Me. All right. I like it because it's heavy music. It has an awesome hook, but it's not too pop you have a hook. Yeah.

You know, it's just doing all those things just right. I agree. I mean, this does it for me. Wicked wisdom. Again, I never imagined this existed. It's very surprising. And when they came out in the early 2000s, a lot of that kind of same bias and assumption

that I brought to Willow's music, people were bringing to this band. Again, a band made up entirely of people of color fronted by a black woman. I mean, there was one metal blog that said, I can't wait to see them get. booed off the stage and hopefully burst into flames. They received death threats.

There were protests when they were scheduled to perform at Oz Fest. People were like really pissed at the idea of this band existing. Oh my gosh. I mean, I'm not surprised. This is just age old rockism, you know, gatekeeping. And I imagine without the, at that point, capacity to intermediate with fans directly over social media, it's like, where do you go? Right? So in a certain way,

perhaps Willow, pushing against those boundaries with the capacity to reach out directly to fans without having to go through those raucous gatekeepers and doing this kind of music. Yeah, and I mean, I'm not going to sit here to say, like, this is the forgotten new metal bands of the early millennium.

But I imagine if this came on and I'd said a music festival, I would be like head banging and moshing and getting down. I would like to see that. Well, I won't be able to whip my hair quite as well as you, but I could bring it. Now, we've talked about Willa and Jada. Let's get to know the rest of the nuclear family.

We've got Brother Jaden, who really speaks to me with his song, Icon, because of the central sample. I really like that track. Me too. And I think it's really hard to hear, but. Someone who has written a dissertation about 1920s and 30s Harlem Jazz. The first time I heard that song, I was like, I know exactly what that sample is. It's Cab Calloway, the Heidi Ho Man.

Ah, yeah. It's cool what they do with it in ICON because, yes, they've taken up a couple of steps. It's Chipmunk sold, sort of like old Kanye style beat making. Yeah, exactly. And then when the more contemporary beat drops, there's still a high hat in there that is carrying a sort of swung jazz kind of groove. So I like how they take the old and bring it new,

but our pain respect. I'm going straight to the top of the cool. We should just chill and maybe take it snow. But we get up there with nowhere to go. And we can chill and just look at the view. There's a yellow rose into a rifle. Me and Harry about to go psycho, psycho. Put a hundred thousand in the Bible.

There's a continuity. Yeah. And it's just, I mean, A, it's something I just never expected to hear on a Jaden Smith, you know, hip-hop track. And when I think harder about it, I think there's something cool, whether intentional or not, of sort of establishing himself in this longer legacy of artists, like, you know, carving out their own voice and their own sound. And that was Cab Calaway. He was the icon of the 1930s and the 40s.

Again, whether that's deliberate or not, it works for me. I like the song. I like the song. Which leaves us with one final member. The father. It's Big Willie himself. And we have to go to the final frontier of, you know, challenging your expectations of the Smith family. It's got to be getting jiggy with it.

Let's go Dance poor pro I know you know I go psycho When my new joint hit Just can't sit Gotta get jig with it That's it

Now honey honey Come on I have not heard this In a long time I am kind of into it A little bit Because it sounds like Maybe it's like

A chic sample Underneath or something Good ears sir Let's get to that In a second But I want to know more about Okay let me speak for myself Sure

I remember when the song came out All I knew was that This was not cool And if I wanted to be cool, I couldn't say that I like this song. Yeah. I had to make fun of it. Yes.

The song later would make it to Pitchfork's top 10 worst songs of the 90s list. And I just vividly remember making so many jokes about getting jiggy, Big Willie style, Wellenium. It was just like, it was like a punching bag. It's sort of like, it makes me think about what Drake does, where it's like, can you make a song that will be a meme before memes? were a thing. Right. You know,

it's like if there could have been a gift with this song, it might have done even that much better. Well, this song, it was a hit. I know.

It was a huge success. It didn't have to do well, but I'm saying it didn't, it had, there was a corniness associated with this song. Right, right. Celebrity from television

and he's known for particularly sampling great hooks from 70s tracks that were already mega hits. I wouldn't even say that. I think it's like compared to the other artists who were emerging at this time. Yeah,

who had this like, this hard. and this authenticity and this like street swagger right like this didn't resonate i mean emm even had a song that deliberately made fun of his other big hit of the time which was just the two of us right like he was a he was just kind of a national joke he was super popular right he was also joke he didn't curse you know there was like this this cleanliness to it that wasn't cool yeah it completely jives with the core aesthetic of hip-hop at the time which is about edginess which is you have the ascendancy of west coast rap that's got

on. And so, yeah, I understand why it just kind of misses the core thing. But can we redeem this song? You're going to try. Let's listen to those samples. You were absolutely right. I mean, I feel like our show this year has become the Nile Rogers show. It's crazy, but here's another Nile Roger sample. It's from his song written with Bernard Edwards for Sister Sledge. He's the greatest dancer. It's surprising that Daff Punk didn't sample this when they worked with him on random access memories. I mean, the man from Sheik himself.

And if you want a 40-minute exegesis of that guitar sound, go to listen our episode with Corey Wong. Yeah. This isn't the only sample here. We've also got one from the barcaise sang and dance. That chorus,

nah, nah, nah, nah, na, nah, na, na, na, listen to the very beginning of this barcaze track. All right, we got a family that likes the sample. I like these samples. And you know what? Here's the other thing is like,

I think that it's totally cool to just make silly party music. Right? Oh, yeah. And this is a little party song. I agree. I'm fine with it. And it's like one more thing I love about this track, DJ Jazzy Jeff's scratching.

No way. It is virtuosic. And it's something I never paid attention to before. Whole new level. Yeah. It's like it's impossibly fast and dexterous. Yeah. There's a lot to celebrate in this song.

I never thought I would say it, but I think it's time to bring back getting jiggy with it. All right. Now, I'm not saying that this Pinkett's. Smith family should be our new national role models. But doing this dive through their catalog, and especially focusing on the music of Willow, has taught me a lesson, I think, or retaught me a lesson, I should say,

which is follow your ears, not your assumptions. I like where you've taken me. I like the approach to listening and sort of just allowing the music to speak for itself. In that case, I think it helps me understand the project a whole lot better when I let go of a lot of those original assumptions. So I dig it.

I'm not sure if I'm willing to get jiggy wit. We'll see. But I'm into the transparent. Are you going to whip your hair? I'm going to whip my hair. This episode of Switched on Pop was produced by Nate Sloan, meet Charlie Harding, edited by Julie Myers, engineered by Ben Montoya,

social media by Abby Barr, and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our executive producers are Nashakurwa and Hannah Rosen. We're a production of the Vox Media Podcast. network and vulture. You can find more episodes of our show on the Apple podcast app on Spotify, pretty much anywhere else you get your podcasts, including our website www.switchedonpop.com. And reach out to us on Twitter. What are your favorite jams from the Smith family that we miss? Tell us at Switched on Pop at Twitter and Instagram. We'll be back again next Tuesday.

You can find, of course, the show anywhere you get podcasts. And this time around, I'm challenging Nate to go into one of his great passions, if you don't know. Nate is okay at the Irish tin whistle. I don't know about the banjo, but his jazz piano is on fire, and we're going to dive into why that music matters, why it still matters when we're chatting with the fabulous VJ Iyer. Check it out next Tuesday. Until then, thanks for listening.

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