For Willow Smith, being the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith has made for “pressure” when it comes to maintaining her parents’ legacy. Will and Jada have been in the entertainment industry for over 30 years, including as both actors and musicians.
During an interview on Friday, July 16, with Apple Music 1, Willow talked about a desire to “do right” by her parents.
The 20-year-old told the radio station while promoting her new rock album “Lately I Feel Everything,” released the same day, “I always just wanted to do right by my parents, and do right by the beauty that they have put in the world, and continue to uplift that beauty and to uphold that beauty.”
She continued, “And I felt a lot of pressure. And because I’m not a minor anymore I’m finding the freedom too. I can put that beauty in the world. I can uphold that energy. And so I’m just figuring that out in all of these different ways, and it’s going to be a journey, and there’s more to come.”
Smith also explained the creative process of the album she always wanted to make since she was 12 years old. She said, “Honestly, I’m still processing it on the human being level. There were a lot of doubts that I had, not even just about this specific album, but just about my career in general, my musical career in general. I followed my joy, and I followed my heart, and I feel like it took us to a really beautiful spot.”
Smith added, “I’m in a place of disbelief right now. For so much of my musical career, I was just overthinking everything, and being so just stressed about things that really I didn’t need to stress about.”
The “Transparent Soul” vocalist’s appearance comes weeks after Smith revealed details about witnessing her mother Jada’s experience with the dark side of being a black rock singer.
Jada, who was a front woman in a nu-metal group called Wicked Wisdom in 2002, often took her daughter on tour with her, where they both encountered the horrors of racism and sexism of the predominately white male industry.
Smith said during an interview with L’Officiel, “My mom got so much hate. It was intense racism and sexism, just packed onto the tens. People giving her death threats, throwing glass at her onstage. Some crazy stuff went down when she was touring with her band.”
