You could be forgiven for never paying much attention to the exploits of 23-year-old Willow Smith. On the other hand, her colorful family already capitalizes on every magazine; his father Will is the famous “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” with an easy slap, his mother Jada Pinkett is also a successful actress, today reinvented podcasters via the toxic “Red Table Talk” he employs to wash his dirty laundry in front of the entire world. If the eldest son, the actor Trey, often keeps to himself, the other brother Jaden, also already working alongside his father, some time ago tried to do the rapper and ended up ridiculed by the entire Internet worse than Chance The Rapper. Willow herself was just ten years old when “Whip My Hair” became the biggest hit cool of the fourth grade, relegating her to that bubble of children of the bored Hollywood super-rich who are very easy to hate.
But, as long as you have hair on your stomach and a naturally uninhibited spirit towards your own privacy, belonging to such a dysfunctional family has its privileges. Along a swing of releases divided between r&b, alt-rock and punk, Willow has had infinite opportunities to grow without rules or pressure, sheltered by her wealthy surname – “empathogen” is her sixth studio album, seventh if you include the collaboration with boyfriend Tyler Cole under the name The Anxiety. Almost no one in the streaming era could afford such a path; Willow, however, has now retreated into her own world arty to the study of guitar, bass, drums, solfeggio and composition, exploring the formulas of jazz, experimental rock and fusion steeped in psychedelic soul. The results, finally, pay dividends, through oblique and impertinent listening, emotionally rough but technically curious, capable of being noticed even in the most impervious to vulgar environments. show business above.
Aided by Jon Batiste on piano and drums, “home” opens the listener between rhythmic slowdowns, complex harmonies and a dreamlike vocal interpretation, slipping away as if fusion modern and youthful, which knows how to play with its curiosity without ever losing sight of a tasty pop inspiration. Instead Willow immediately changes gear with the following “ancient girl”, supported by the acoustic guitar alone as if it were a stringed jig at minimum, and in a flash we arrive at the bright and expansive single “symptom of life”, which floats in the air over a rhythmic which seems to have been designed by Louis Cole.
Simple but effective: “empathogen” uses guitar, piano, synth, bass and drums to chase the variations of GoGo Penguin and Snarky Puppy, but also instinctively draws inspiration from the songwriting percussiveness of Fiona Apple and the oblique jazz touch of Esperanza Spalding – impossible, in this context, not to think in particular of a certain “Emily's D+Evolution”. Not even the presence of St Vincent on the progressive folk of “pain for fun”, emotionally placed between “Daddy's Home” and the recent “All Born Screaming” is no coincidence: Willow shows herself particularly dramatic against the guest's cautious maturity, creating a duet that knows how to warm the heart at the right time.
But there's still plenty of it; the lulling and emotional “the fear is not real”, cloaked in a maternal touch, contrasts with the nervous punk-rock of “false self” and above all “run!”, the most aggressive piece of the lot, which however this time avoids the cosplay of ridges and studs from old albums to become incisive and stuttering like a soft electric saw. Also irresistible is “between i and she”, crackling acoustic roughness à la Violent Femmes conducted with seraphic passion, once again capable of demonstrating the imagination of a young author who knows how to fish almost everywhere, only to then bring everything back to a personal dimension .
Of course, a vaguely unfriendly aura remains at work; Growing up in the era of TikTok and short-form content, Willow has a natural tendency to jump from topic to topic to maintain interest and communicate everything at once. With twelve songs for just thirty-two minutes, “empathogen” flows well, but some songs remain barely mentioned ideas – it's a shame, in short, that “i know that face” lasts less than two minutes, because the metric used a cappella alone would deserve full development his, and this is to say nothing of the avant-jazz experiment “no words 1 & 2” and the ambient-pop sketch “down”.
Not bad, the album ends with “bigfeelings”, the longest and most complex piece, edited in 7/4 and performed, as per the title, with all the enthusiasm of a youth tossed by events; between piano and synth played as if they had the gift of speech, an acute use of double voices and continuous rhythmic shifts, the piece is the enthralling spearhead of an album capable of interacting on several occasions.
Recently hosted at NPR's Tiny Desk, Willow supported her work with conviction, demonstrating that, with the right support, it is possible to mature one's art into interesting territories without distorting itself. It would be nice if the rest of the recording industry adopted the same vision for all those less well-off family artists, because a panorama populated by many small “empathogens” would certainly be more interesting than the current one.
05/08/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
