Willow Smith On Growing Up With Famous Parents & Her New Pop-Punk Era | GLAMOUR Unfiltered

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Hey, I'm Willow Smith and this is my Glamour Unfiltered.

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I think that it's only important for me

to challenge conventional wisdom

if that conventional wisdom in some way

says that it's not okay for someone

to be the fullest version of who they are

or it's not okay for them to express what's inside of them

if that's not outwardly hurting anybody else.

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Some things that I do to just kind of practice

being the most authentic version of myself

is every day there's gonna be an opportunity

where you can say what's really on your mind

or you can just try to not rock the boat

and I think that recognizing those moments

and being aware in those moments

and making the decision to advocate for yourself,

advocate for your expression,

advocate for your rights, even somebody else's rights

like even if it doesn't specifically pertain to you,

to just be aware in those moments

and to show up and speak up in those moments.

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Living on earth and observing nature has taught me so much

about what the divine feminine truly is

and the amount of nurturing

and caring and honestly, tough love

and power that mother earth represents.

Mother earth is the ultimate mother,

so I get all of my femininity advice from her.

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I think that people are starting to realize

that you can't tell a human who they are.

The human has to tell you who they are.

So personally, I think that back in the day

when we were living in tribes and connected to the earth,

we understood that more deeply

and since we've moved away from that kind of life

and started living in cities and using phones

and saying, this area is mine and you can't come here,

we just lost that.

Like we just kinda lost that.

So we just have to bring it back

and we have to be aware in the ways

that we bring that compassion and that understanding

and that community back in a world where it's not conducive

to that kind of connection or that kind of understanding.

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You can't change how other people think or feel about you

'cause their reality is their reality

and the only thing you can do is try to do something good

with what you've been given

and if you don't try to do something good

with what you've been given,

then what's the purpose of you having this?

What's the purpose of even,

I mean, yeah, like what's the purpose

of you even being here?

So that's what I tell myself.

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It's not worth it if you don't try to help people,

like none of it is worth it if you're not in service

and so just trying to do that

in all the different ways that you possibly can.

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I've had a lot of time to sit

and just think about a lot of my childhood,

a lot of my childhood traumas

that still seep in to my life today

and spending so much time at home

and just having so much time on my hands

to explore those things,

not even like honestly against my will at times

because when you're just sitting at home,

things come up and your mind just starts going

and sometimes you're not even choosing

to address these things but they're coming up,

so you better address it or it's never gonna get fixed.

From being in the limelight from such a young age,

there's a huge trigger of feeling like I'm only valued

when I'm entertaining or when I'm performing

and I'm not valued as just me

without putting on a show and trying to do the things

and that hurts because everyone wants to be loved,

not for what they do, but for who they are.

And so when I start to feel like I'm only being valued

because of my performance or because of my whatever,

anything that doesn't have to do with who I truly am,

I get very triggered and very, very anxious

and very sad and scared very quickly.

I'm grateful for everything my life,

even the things that don't go the way I want them to

and I just try to drill that in

and drill that in and drill that in

and not allow my mind to go to anywhere else but that place.

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People of color, not even just in the rock world,

are underrepresented in general,

specifically women of color

if we're gonna narrow down even more

and so it's not even just about rock

even though that's a very heavily

white male dominated space,

I think that I just want to express my desire

and my anger at the fact that just people of color

and women of color haven't been given the freedom

to just be who we wanna be without being challenged for it

and questioned because of it

and all of these different things

and honestly, even being attached

and violently attacked because of it.

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It's about time, we're sick and tired.

We are done being pushed to the side,

attacked, violated and no one caring.

We're just done and it's honestly that simple

at a certain point.

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I want my music to serve a double purpose

of yeah, like you can listen to this and have fun

and turn your mind off and live in the moment,

but also you're not going to be ingesting

poison into your mind

and it's actually gonna be planting a seed

that is going to help you later in life

and not give you these weird murky, dark feelings

and thoughts later in life

that you really didn't know where it came from.

It's because you were listening

to this negative, hateful music,

or not even just music, but like what we watch,

what we read, who we follow on social media,

all of those things, you are what you eat.

You are what you ingest.

You are what you expose yourself to

and I just wanna be one of the things

that you can expose yourself to

that hopefully will make you feel more love for yourself

and the people around you.

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It's starting to erode the efficiency and honesty

and ease with which we can communicate with people

in our close-knit community

and that's a problem because those are the people

that we need to communicate with

and those are the people

that we need to, this is our community, like it's real life.

Those are the people that we need to be helping

and communicating with and creating with

in order to make our community a better place

and so on and so on and so on.

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Not very well, but the failure,

how I think about failure is like not being as compassionate

as I know I should have been in that situation.

Not being as honest as I know

I should have been in that situation.

Not bringing my all to an artistic endeavor

that I knew needed my all.

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I feel most empowered when I have the courage

to advocate for myself in a radical way

and I feel most empowered

when I feel like I've done something really, really well.

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To take all of the different experiences,

all of the different heartbreaks and pains

and horrendous mistakes and put it all together

and create a goddess warrior of a woman of yourself.

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The only thing that truly matters in life

is having meaningful connections

with your fellow brothers and sisters.

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The universe is infinite and we know this scientifically.

There is no way that there's not infinite amounts

of species out there doing their thing,

kicking it around and wondering the same question,

huh, I wonder if there's some other people out there.

So hopefully one day,

if there any extra terrestrials looking at this right now,

beam me up 'cause I'm down to meet your leader.

I'm down to know what the vibe is and that's where I'm at.