Yesterday, my friend sent me this link to the music video of Willow Smith, daughter of actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, singing her debut single “Whip My Hair.” I must have watched this video upwards of ten times already, staring completely dumbfounded at the screen each time. When I learned that yet another one of the young Smith brood has made their way into the limelight, I was unfazed. However the lyrics and video I have been listening to and watching over and over is the farthest thing I expected from a nine-year-old girl, no matter her legacy.
When you take this song for face value it is simply about having fun and letting go of inhibitions. Also, the frequent mentions of shaking off “haters” introduce the theme of not letting other people bring you down. However, while you can try all you’d like to acknowledge the cutesy message and nothing else, some of her lyrics make this almost impossible. One of the verses in the song is
I'ma get more shine than a little bit
Soon as I hit the stage applause I’m hearing it
Whether its black stars black cars I’m feeling it
But can't none of them whip it like I do
I, I gets it in mmm yea I go hard
When they see me pull up
I whip it real hard
I whip it real hard
Real hard
I whip it real hard
If Willow Smith (or her songwriter) is going to plainly include adult themes in the song such as cars, her audience cannot be expected to ignore the very adult messages expressed, for example, by the repetition of the words “real heard” four consecutive times. Her insistence on this phrase combined with her knowing looks to the camera instantly change the meaning from “I fiercely whip my hair around at a high velocity when I’m dancing” to something very different. It is also interesting to look at the gender evoked by this particular verse. A very masculine ego shines through in lines like “none of them whip it like I do.” More notably, male sexuality is highly present in phrases such as “I gets it in” and the recurrence of the words “I whip it real hard.” Of course, the latter is supposed to refer to her hair, but once this line is paired with other possibly phallic allusions like getting it in, it makes it all the more difficult to block out the prevalence of sexual references in a song sung by a fourth grader. These are my main grounds for believing that Smith did not write this song herself, and furthermore, that her songwriter is probably male. There is no information yet on the internet to confirm or deny this.
With this song, Smith is clearly not trying to appeal to her own contemporaries. Granted, most hip-hop music nowadays is hardly PG, but while Nikki Minaj raps about sex and cars, she also is not aiming her music towards nine-year-olds. Although anyone old enough to maneuver a remote control could turn on VH1 or MTV and see women dancing in skimpy outfits, the music video by Willow Smith is particularly egregious because although her body is sufficiently covered, her makeup, hair, and nails combined with her questionable lyrics instantly changes the image of childhood. Children often take cues from their parents, older siblings, and even cultural icons on how to act, but mostly they learn by examples from their peers. Willow Smith is a minor, a young little girl. She can’t drive, drink, get into nightclubs or understand most innuendos, so it really doesn’t make sense for her to be singing about them.
The bigger picture here is that if it is okay to sexualize a nine-year-old, then what does that say about society’s treatment and expectations of females in general? Are all girls supposed to be objects of sexual attention as soon as they’re old enough to wear the same kinds of clothes as older girls or perhaps just old enough to make a music video? Furthermore, the urban themes in “Whip My Hair” add a racial aspect to the argument. If a nine-year-old African American girl can sing about almost the same things as Nikki Minaj, Rihanna, and Beyoncé, and wear the same makeup and hairstyles as them, then why should Willow Smith’s birth year alone change the way people interpret her lyrics and dance moves?
Many female music artists use their “fierceness” as a vehicle for empowerment. For them to show it through their physical appearance and in their lyrics is their prerogative as legal, independent adults. However, Willow Smith is setting a precedent with her song “Whip My Hair” for not only other girls her age to act like diva adult women but also for her fans of all ages to accept adult messages from a mere child and carelessly lost sight of a little girl’s age.
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