The album is available for pre-order / pre-save today and features Travis Barker, Avril Lavigne and more.
WILLOW has also released another song from the forthcoming record – ‘Lipstick’. “I just wanted to let loose with this album. I wanted to have fun and be young and not be so existential and worrying all the time,” says WILLOW. ‘Lipstick’ follows the release of the explosive first single ‘t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l feat. Travis Barker’.
At only 20 years old, WILLOW has spent half her life in the music industry. With lately I feel
EVERYTHING, a decade of growth both in the industry and as a young woman come to a head. Her new single and LP is a love letter to that constant evolution.
She began working on the album in 2020, during the pandemic. With all the extra time on her hands at home, she began recording demos that she would later re-record when she felt like she could safely enter a studio. It was a new process for her, born out of caution, but it helped her capture the rawness of her new sound. On the forthcoming record, WILLOW channels the pop-punk and emo heroes she adored as a teenager, like Avril Lavigne, My Chemical Romance and Paramore. “I thought this was a really dope outlet for a new energy I wanted to bring to my music,” she says.
‘t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l feat. Travis Barker’ was originally unveiled via Beats1’s Zane Lowe as a New Music Daily and has since garnered both critical praise and commercial success. WILLOW recently performed the single on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. Watch here.
PRAISE FOR
‘t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l feat. Travis Barker’
"Willow is back, and she’s stepping on necks on the way...Shredding on the guitar, she radiates power."
New York Magazine
"Willow Smith goes full pop-punk... the song draws from the music of Paramore, Fall Out Boy, and Barker’s own band Blink-182, with hard-hitting percussion and pop-punk power chords on guitar."
Rolling Stone
“Thank God for Willow, tracking her metamorphosis from precocious neo-soul explorer to out-and-out alt, kid. ‘t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l’ is bratty in the best way, pushing the genre towards more diverse expression”
The Guardian Guide
"Willow Smith is ready to rock your world...fully embraces the alt-rock and pop-punk sound. Complete with her own guitar playing and a head-banging chorus"
Harper’s Bazaar
“She is the moment...Over roiling guitars and Barker’s thunderous drums...belts in her best pop-punk voice about seeing right through the haters in her life. It’s super catchy. In its accompanying video, she channels the nostalgic fish-eye performance vids of pop-punk’s golden era with her own chic twists...No doubt the pop-punk heroes of her youth, Hayley Williams, Gerard Way, and Patrick Stump, would be proud."
NYLON
"A guitar-heavy track that sees the rap star take a significant sonic shift and swap intricate lyrical flows for thrash-y pop-punk powerchords...Wielding an Ernie Ball Music Man St. Vincent signature, Smith serves up a series of sweet melodic slides and oversized open-string chordal hooks over a moody bass guitar line, all of which are driven along by Barker’s high-octane drum part."
Guitar World
“Smith’s song doesn’t so much make the case for Black women in pop-punk as much as it
serves as a reminder that we’ve always been here. It’s a pop-punk banger for the ages.”
Jezebel
