In retrospect, only a handful of artists have attained a distinct ‘coolness’ that remains untarnished by excessive exposure. These artists can release music, embark on tours, maintain minimal social media and press presence, and yet evade significant backlash from demanding fans. While some may appear cool on the surface, lacking the depth or authenticity to sustain it, Willow Smith, a 23-year-old musician, distinguishes herself by having the personality, quirk, and artistry to back it. With past times and devotions like researching ancient tribes, articulating the impact of vulnerability in art with unwavering fervor, and idolizing mathematicians like Eugenia Cheng instead of fleeting Hollywood stars, Willow epitomizes perpetual coolness.

The singer, known for her tendency to release chart-topping music before retreating from the public eye, clarifies that this behavior isn’t a deliberate imitation of her musical counterparts. Instead, it reflects her commitment to solitude and self-renewal—a practice often misunderstood as calculated elusiveness and avoidance. After her previous studio album, <COPINGMECHANISM>, Willow Smith released her single “Alone,” in which solitude emerges as a central theme, compelling her to break free from negative patterns and engage in introspection. “We always try to kind of look away from our negative emotions or don’t pay attention to them as much,” she shares over the phone, “but I find that negative emotions are a really big indication that something in your life needs to change.”

Nevertheless, confronting her negative emotions directly has always been inherent in her character. These emotions, labeled by the artist as “stagnation,” acted as catalysts for each emotional and spiritual awakening. For Willow, she remembers encountering cycles in her life where she realized “how I’m living right now is not the fullest of my potential,” and navigating through those experiences opened the door into a “whole new side of myself that I didn’t even know existed. And now I have more work to do, which becomes another artistic pursuit.” Her capacity to transmute life’s ebbs and flows into electrifying and soul-stirring jazz-rock melodies exemplifies that the “artistic evolution or the reinvention of myself in the eyes of the world” is a reflection, as she perceives it, “of my internal growth.”

For her, reinvention has often been instinctive, deeply felt, yet ultimately therapeutic and serene, encompassing the entire spectrum of emotions. Growing up within the unique context of girlhood, specifically, she notes, as a “woman of color,” often entails a lifelong experience of being misunderstood, “I think becoming who we are is always a painful process, whether you’re doing it in front of other people or not.” It can involve feeling confined and having to reshape the world’s perception of you, which for her, seemed to include transitioning from being known as the young nepo pop artist who once sang about her vibrant hair to expelling the hardships of raw adulthood and carving an artistic lane away from her famous family. To her, each transformation represents a musical evolution and a profound journey of self-discovery, proving that reinvention is not just an artistic process, but a deeply personal and transformative experience.

‍We’ve grown up with you in a way and have seen you consistently reinvent yourself, whether it’s been your sound, style, or identity preservation. Growing up, did you find that transformation was easy for you?

I think becoming who we are is always a painful process, whether you’re doing it in front of other people or not. I think as humans, we’re just always evolving, no matter if we’d like to or not; some of us are scared of that, actually. Some of us don’t want that. But I just find that I just go with the flow of where my natural evolution is going. And I try not to be afraid of that internal change. Because when you stay the same, you’re not learning anything. You’re not growing towards the fullness of the potential that you could be.

Definitely. I feel like there are people who can change very quickly, and there are people where the universe will force them to change. There will be a big catalyst, or it will force you to overcome some obstacles so you can learn that lesson. How do you know when to stop repeating cycles in your life?

Wow. I think we always try to look away from our negative emotions or not pay attention to them as much, but I find that negative emotions are a really big indication that something in your life needs to change. So recently, I’ve just been trying to tap in instead of trying to white knuckle through emotions and being like, ‘You know what? I just have to not be emotional. I can’t cry right now. I can’t feel this way right now. I don’t have time to reflect right now.’ It’s really been helpful to be like, ‘Okay, let me look into this.’ Either it’s a negative emotion, or maybe it’s a slight feeling of anxiety, whatever it is. Just being aware of it and trying to follow the roots of it.

And me, following the roots of it, turns into so many different artistic expressions. And sometimes you feel like, ‘Oh, I have it. I got it. I figured this thing out. I healed from this thing.’ And that, you know, turns into an artistic expression, and then you’re like, ‘Oh, wait. Now I had this other experience that opened this door into this whole new side of myself that I actually didn’t even know existed. And now I have more work to do,’ which then becomes another artistic pursuit. So I really think that the artistic evolution or the reinvention of myself in the eyes of the world, I feel like is really just a reflection of my internal growth, and how I feel is the best way to express that in an artistic way.

‍Do you feel like there’s often a big catalyst in your life that happens before a big awakening?

Feeling stagnant. Like a feeling of stagnation. It’s a desire and a deep knowing that I can be more than what I am now. I feel stagnation and that feeling of anxiety comes from that deep knowing how I’m living right now is not the fullest of my potential. And you just keep on that journey towards the best version of yourself. And there are so many different versions of you along that road.

I feel like you’ve touched on this idea of being vulnerable and not “white-knuckling” through your emotions. The act of growing up is much more emotional than we foresee, especially for young women or young femmes—it’s kind of demonized in a way.

I mean, especially if you’re a woman of color. Now, there’s a whole other layer of stereotype layered on top of that.

How did you work through that, if that’s something that resonated with you growing up?

Man, as a teenager, I’ve never been fond of misogynistic music or any media with a hateful vibe or degrading words. I was always the one to speak up if someone played such music, asking them to change it or leaving the place. Many times, I faced resistance to that. In many ways, it was perceived as, ‘Why are you being so emotional? Why are you being so sensitive?’ I could have probably addressed it differently in many situations, but I do feel like the heart of my discomfort and the reason why I didn’t want to listen to that comes from a pure place. It’s difficult.

I feel like I’ve always gotten this very in-touch and in-tune empathetic vibe from you. How does empathy inform how you navigate throughout the world? And how does it even shape the ear you have for music?

I think one of humanity’s superpowers is empathy. Since the dawn of human civilization, we’ve been coming together to try to take care of each other. In our communities and our tribes. Sometimes we don’t do it in the right ways, but there’s always a pure intention of I want to take care of my community. Probably not as much today, but, you know, maybe speaking more for our ancestors, I feel like that’s a deep energy that I want to bring into the world because we don’t really see it a lot. And I feel like we need that. We need empathy, we need compassion. We need people willing to bring that to the table even when that’s not being brought to their table. I just think it’s so important as a catalyst for healing.

I think we live in a world that wants the opposite of that. And the people who are consistently pushing for empathy and unconditional love, it serves as an act of resistance.

I completely agree with you. There’s a lot of messaging that compassion or being compassionate or being vulnerable is weak or will get you hurt in this world. It’s a dog-eat-dog kind of situation. And if we keep feeding into that mindset, then that does become the truth.

In regards to being an artist, one that goes past just putting out music and doing concerts, but also wanting to create a community of music lovers—has it been hard to see the idea of an artist being turned into a personality or an influencer in the digital age?

I feel there’s this commodification of entertainers. People are making them into these people who are put on a pedestal or demonized, and we don’t really see their humanity. And also just the commodification of art in general is becoming the norm. I’m the kind of person who values authenticity, and being aware of the message of your art, and the real spirit of your art. It’s so important. But you do look around and see that going away, but then I also see a resurgence of people fighting back against that [commodification of art]. I think everything has a flow of the tide. As the tide comes in, the tide leaves. There was a time when the pop artists, the artists that everybody listened to, were the ones who stuck their neck out politically and artistically. There was a time when that was the case, and then, the tide goes away, and now we’re in a time where people are catering to the masses in a way that is not really the sugar with the medicine, it’s really just the sugar.

I think everything has its time and place, but the real truth speakers and the people who really understand what it means to be an artist in this time, I feel like the people who see that are always going to connect to them so much deeper and really see their beauty, and hopefully bring that into their life.

Right, we’re seeing record labels prioritize algorithms over human experience and push this age of being a big personality in order to sell your music.‍

I struggle with this a lot, actually. It’s just the times right now. It’s rough, and we just have to fight back against those values. And we have to, time and time again, try to instill a deeper value system when it comes to the music industry and any industry really. Because they’re all institutions at the end of the day. And who benefits from those? 

Fictional Books have been historically used for escapism and exploration. On the conversation of creative practices, how has your book, Black Shield Maiden, inspired your fanatical storytelling abilities?

It was such a beautiful learning experience because as a kid I was such an avid reader and I’ve always seen myself as someone who would write books. But, my desire to create worlds and get lost in characters has only increased since writing Black Shield Maiden. I am excited to keep writing.

The book is a fictional story about an African Warrior amongst Vikings; what truth about this book is reflected in your life? Is the dynamic something you pulled from in your life, whether it be the music industry or just America?

There really aren’t any parallels between Yafeu’s life and my life except that we’re both young black women on the journey of finding ourselves and our deep divine strength in a world that doesn’t want us to most of the time. I really think that’s a journey that we all have to go through no matter what color or gender we are. I want this book to speak to the layered complexity inside anyone who reads it.

You’re very spiritual, and we see you mention your Hare Krishna faith a lot in public. How does your practice inform your practice in art? What values do you take from your faith that we can see in your art form?

I think that one thing that all the religious and spiritual traditions share is the importance of living your life with the awareness of the impact that you have on others and on your environment. And I think that when you live with that awareness, or at least try, that’s really all you can do, honestly. At the end of the day, all we can do is practice and try. There will be moments where our best isn’t good enough. And there will be moments where our best is good enough. And that’s amazing, and we love those times. I want to spend all my time on that journey of really being so aware of what I say and what I do. And I want the art that I put out there just to uplift and bring more love and compassion into this world.

‍What has that idea of practice taught you about the expansion of identity, whether it be gender or femininity, expression, etc.? 

I think the one thing that we’re seeing today that we could really benefit from is the well of knowledge and ancient knowledge. A lot of people nowadays want to judge others based on what their religion is, what their skin color is, where they’re from, or who their parents are. And I think that if we can strip all of that away and really come to the understanding that without getting into the soul and all of that, we were all children at one point where our only desire was to give and receive love. And every single one of us was that. And I really truly believe that we have experiences, we have betrayals, and we have all of these dark experiences that happen to us that cover up that true nature that we experienced as children.

And if we can just try to see that in others, that’s the source of who they are. Like that child, that child deep within all of us who only wanted to give and receive love. And then so much happened to us, and then we got afraid, then we got angry, and then we got scared. And then we started having a complex identity instead of just being a pure fountain of love.

When we’re speaking of methods of practice within art and spirituality, there’s an overlap of science and math in music that is so often ignored. And we see amazing artists like Imogen Heap and Eugenia Cheng specifically embrace advancements in science and technology for their music. What have you learned from artists like them?

Did you just say Eugenia Cheng? I love that woman. I have such a huge love for scientists and artists who go so far in the opposite direction that they come around the other side. It becomes the same thing, like a different side of the same coin. I mean, art is the way that humans try to explain reality emotionally, and science is the way that humans try to explain reality through words, numbers, and rigorous logic. I think both are used at their highest potential when used together. And I think both of those are just such a beautiful gift, and they can be used together. I truly feel that there’s so much that we could do with the earth, like replenishing the earth by looking at it sustainably in an artistic and scientific view. We need a sustainable view of how we can try to heal the earth and heal communities through an artistic and scientific view by working together. So much of the time, we think that they don’t mix, but they really do, and they should because it just makes everything so much more inclusive and expansive. And I honestly think it just works better.

Not only do they mix, but one informs the other. In order to get any music or any sound, you need vibration, which comes from hertz, and to match chords and keep rhythm, you have to analyze BPMs. That’s all math.

100 percent. It’s literally one and the same. And I’m so glad you brought that up because that’s an amazing example.

I feel like, especially in the realm of jazz, there’s this misconception that it’s all about spontaneity and emotion. We’ve seen how ancient African tribes utilized jazz and water play, among other things, to channel emotions into sound. However, jazz also serves as the foundation for numerous other genres—rock, R&B, metal, and more. In reality, jazz is highly methodical. It operates on an intricate understanding of scales, modes, and chords, with each note carefully selected to correspond with changes in harmony.

It’s extremely methodical, actually. It’s so methodical that to any person, it could sound like a complete and utter expression of anything that person wants it to be. But underneath that is a really robust understanding. You know, scales, modes, and chords and how each note corresponds to that change. It’s at such a high level and going so fast that, like I said before, an artist will go so far into the direction of art that it comes around the other side toward science. And that’s what we’re seeing with jazz. It just feels like complete and utter expression with no plan.

Is that why we’ve seen you do more jazz covers lately?

I really feel like it’s ancestral, honestly. I’ve always been so interested and so open to bringing in the ancestors and really feeling their presence and energy in a way that informs my everyday life. And I feel like learning about the history and me learning about all of the beautiful ways that we have expressed our pain, expressed our insane intelligence, and expressed our love while being in America as Black people. It’s deeply inspiring, it really is a legacy, and these are really our ancestors. And so I feel like it’s really an ancestral practice of me trying to tap into my roots in a different way than I ever have before.

Definitely. With your new album, will it be influenced by jazz? Will we hear more jazz chords? Or how is this expansion of your exploration of music, math, and spirituality going to be revealed?

This new music is another step in my evolution. I must say that I’m so proud of the emotional growth that I have made through this process. And I also want to say that I’ve always been genre-fluid and genre-bending, but I’m very hesitant to even try to box it into one thing. I wouldn’t say it’s a hundred percent a jazz album. It is definitely inspired by a lot of jazz that I have listened to and internalized, but it’s also inspired by a lot of indigenous tribal music. I’m also inspired by just random classical songs that I’ve heard, songs that don’t even fit into a genre. Like there’s a Bobby McFerrin album that I’ve been listening to, it’s called Beyond Words.

And there are songs on this album that completely transcend all genres, even though it says jazz all over the album. And you’re just sitting there going, this man is using his voice in a way that I’ve really never heard before. I would have to say that even though this album was 100% started in my mind, from the idea that I love Chet Baker, I love Ella Fitzgerald, and I want to use my voice in a way that brings this ancestral vibe. It is such a mix of so many different things, and it’s really just me, honestly.

Are there other collaborators, or is it just purely your sound?

There are other collaborators. What I meant by that is that it just sounds like me. It just sounds like the most me when I’m in my room by myself and what’s going on in my heart, what’s going on in my mind. If I could make that into a composition, which I have for this project—then that’s what it would sound like. I collaborated with so many amazing people on this album that I really love. One person that I collaborated with is really special to me, his name is Eddie Benjamin, and he’s an insanely talented musician and beautiful person. And we made a few songs for this record together. 

Photographed by Domen & Van de Velde

Styled by Chloe & Chenelle at A-Frame Agency

Written by Tiana Randall

Hair: Vernon Francois at The Visionaries Agency

Makeup: Francie Tomalonis at The Visionaries Agency using Anastasia Beverly Hills

Set Design: Enoch M. Choi 

Production: Chloe Cussen 

Photography Assistant: Laura Berrou

Production Assistants: Palmer Dean and Jabari 

Location: Issue Studio