Willow Smith: Whip My Hair Music Video 2010

Table Of Content

• Pop CultureWatch Willow Smith's epic Mother's Day surprise for Jada Pinkett Smith
• Willow Smith's Life After Whip My Hair (& The Harsh Reality Of Growing Up Famous)
• Willow Smith used to regret her 2010 hit 'Whip My Hair.' Now, she embraces the song
• Background and release
• Live performances
• Willow and Tyler Cole's collaborative project The Anxiety

Outside of the United States, "Whip My Hair" peaked within the top ten of the charts in Belgium (Wallonia), Denmark, and the United Kingdom, and peaked within the top 20 of the charts in Australia, Canada, and Ireland. Thankfully, on this electrifying 2021 record, Willow was able to tap into her inner pop-punk and rock roots. The singer sought the help of pop-punk legends and personal idols Avril Lavigne and Travis Barker to make this album possible, and the collaborations did not disappoint.

Pop CultureWatch Willow Smith's epic Mother's Day surprise for Jada Pinkett Smith

When she opened for Britney Spears' Onyx Hotel Tour, Pinkett Smith faced an amalgamation of racist and sexist abuse that her wide-eyed daughter bore witness to. "There are literally no words to describe having to get up in front of people who literally hated her, every night," Willow said in NME. On July 16, the singer released a concert documentary movie via Facebook in celebration of the release of her new album Lately I Feel Everything. To close out the show, Willow performed a rock rendition of her 2010 song "Whip My Hair," taking a quick interlude to casually sit down and have her head shaved in its entirety while shredding some backup guitar. Once her transformation is complete, the song abruptly ends as she looks upward to reveal the new look. If you already thought she was too cool for this world, wait until you get a load of the clip itself, which begins around the 46-minute mark in the video below.

Willow Smith's Life After Whip My Hair (& The Harsh Reality Of Growing Up Famous)

"I had so much respect for the rock genre, but I didn't know if I could give it exactly what it needed," she said in NME. "I was trained very specifically as an R&B singer and I had seen my mum screaming and doing it so perfectly." As of the writing of this post in 2021, Willow Smith herself has released over 10 singles, as well as being featured on tracks by other artists. And throughout it all she has collaborated with the likes of Kid Cudi, Travis Barker, Nicki Minaj and of course Jaden.

Willow Smith used to regret her 2010 hit 'Whip My Hair.' Now, she embraces the song

For example, one of the biggest episodes featured Jordyn Woods right after the Khloé Kardashian and Tristan Thompson scandal. Even when she seems to be under the radar, it seems she always has something new, interesting and introspective under her belt. This was definitely the case with her surprise neo-soul album, "iii," a short EP released for free in 2014.

In fact Willow didn’t get around to actually putting a full-lengthy until 2015’s “Ardipithecus”. As such it has been utilized by children-based franchises such as Sesame Street and Alvin and the Chipmunks. So conclusively, Willow is in fact whipping her hair and advises all of the ladies in the house to do the same. But she is doing so as part of an overall personal empowerment piece which, as implied, is directed most specifically towards females. Madonna's hit "Like A Prayer" debuted in a Pepsi commercial, but Pepsi pulled the ad the next day when the controversial video appeared. Though her own music is nowhere as pummeling as Wicked Wisdom — who recently reunited on an episode of Pinkett Smith's Facebook Watch talk show "Red Table Talk" — Smith said she's proud to be following in her mom's footsteps.

So under her perception whipping your hair would be akin to an individual asserting her individuality. And on one hand, perhaps it can be argued that jerking your head around in such a repeated, monotonous, easy-to-replicate motion is the antithesis of an expression of individuality. But at the same time if you watch someone actually performing the move, then it must be admitted that it takes a certain amount of not giving AF – which is always a prerequisite in terms of being yourself – to actually pull it off in public.

Live performances

With this insight, Willow dove headfirst into her second album, "The 1st." A longtime fan of the actor, Willow told Vulture that Michael Cera's lo-fi/folk sound on "True That" was what led her to give guitar a whirl. She also noted that her sophomore effort felt like a representation of the new era of her life and career. "It's both in my artistic development and also my emotional and mental development just as a human being," she said.

Song Meanings & Facts

”, which only charted in Belgium but still managed, like “Whip My Hair”, to be certified platinum in the US and Australia. Willow’s parents, the aforementioned Jada Pinkett-Smith and perennial Hollywood leading man Will Smith, are infamously liberal when it comes to raising Willow and her big bro, the equally-famous Jaden Smith. However, this song becoming a hit and the type of independence – for lack of a better word – that afforded the young lady did cause some friction within the family.

The singer recalled touring with her mom's nu-metal band, Wicked Wisdom, for years as a child. Though Pinkett Smith, 49, sometimes faced intense racism as a Black woman fronting a hard rock band, she modeled for her daughter a powerful way to handle detractors. Though "Whip My Hair" later grew to be a source of embarrassment for her, the singer, 20, told L'Officiel magazine she now embraces the song's important self-love message. "For so long, I wanted to condemn that time of my life and forget it, just kind of push it under the rug,” said Smith. “I really regretted it." With that, Willow set to work on "COPINGMECHANISM," a rock album about love and loss.

"I've grown up and realized what womanhood means to me." Willow shared that she also drew inspiration from her mom and bell hooks for this eclectic reintroduction. In this case, the shaving of Willow's afro could be symbolic of letting go of the past, breaking free of the public's expectations, and grandeur metamorphosis, among plenty of other things she's faced as someone who's been in the spotlight from the moment she was born. Just goes to show that sometimes (and especially for Black women) hair is about more than just the hair itself. Now we're looking at the performer's hairstyles with even more admiration than before.

I was super young, and I had a dream, but all I really wanted to do was sing and I didn’t equate that with all the business and the stress that ended up coming with it. This same year, Willow also found time to collaborate with "Superbad" star Michael Cera on a standalone track called "twentyfortyeight 2.0." Smith first shaved her head at 11 years old in 2012, two years after "Whip My Hair" first dropped. She previously had her head shaved last March, while she spent 24 hours in a glass room as part of a performance art installation at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. We all know that Willow Smith's been wearing her head in a close-cropped buzz cut recently — and that she even convinced mother Jada Pinkett-Smith to do the same — but apparently, the process of getting said haircut was way cooler than we ever could have imagined.

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"I'm thinking about shaving my head during the 'Whip My Hair' performance," Smith said in a behind-the-scenes clip. "This is gonna be my third time in my life shaving my head. I'm always shaving my head at monumental times in my life, when things are really changing. And this is definitely one of those moments." In the thick of quarantine and lockdowns, Willow threw herself into multiple creative ventures. One of her most intriguing and impactful contributions was her collaborative project "The Anxiety" with Tyler Cole. The project started as a 24-hour exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen Contemporary inspired by their personal experiences with anxiety.

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"With Willow, she just loves it ... She just wants it, she has a drive, an energy, and she just connects to human emotion." From "Whip My Hair" to "curious/furious," let's take a look at Willow Smith's extraordinary life in the spotlight. On 26 October 2010, “Whip My Hair” became Willow Smith’s – who tends to simply go by the name Willow as far as her music career is concerned – debut single. And the label behind the track is Roc Nation, whom she also signed with that very year. "There is a lot going on in the world and I think THE ANXIETY reflects how a lot of us feel right now. So hopefully this music and the art we are creating can help you in any way even if it's just a quick distraction from all of this chaos," Cole said on Instagram. "Meet Me At Our Spot," a song detailing different anxieties and longing for a safe place, failed to chart when it was first released but went viral on TikTok in 2021.

The first time Willow actually performed this tune live was also on a talk show, that being The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The first person to actually tease this track or more specifically publicize the fact that Willow was coming out with music is recognized as her mom, established Hollywood actress Jada Pinkett-Smith. And she did so during an episode of a talk show entitled Lopez Tonight that aired a few months prior. The official visual to this song was directed by a tenured professional who goes by the name of Ray Kay. The clip was filmed in Los Angeles, which is where Willow was born and with said city being her base of operations. And the video went on to receive a couple of nominations in 2011 at the NAACP Images Awards and the BET Awards.

It topped the UK R&B Chart and fell just a spot short of replicating the feat on the UK Singles Chart proper. It also achieved silver status in England and around the world charted in 15 countries. But more to the point is this dance being symbolic of the overall message of the piece. And that message, most simply explained, is based on Willow advising listeners not to be afraid to be themselves. “I just wanted to fulfill that desire that I had ever since I was 10 or 12 of singing rock music, of being a Black woman singing rock music,” she said. Smith also opened up about what a dream come true it is for her, as a Black woman, to perform rock music.