Understanding Jaden Smith
A beautiful confusion.
Part-time philosopher and one-time actor, Jaden Smith has been, for while now, a full-time musician.
He records under the name Jaden, now. With his own music label, MSFTS, under Roc Nation Entertainment(!) is home to a host of friends following his style. They frame themselves as rebels, operating outside of the popular music industry. His family aside, take that image as you will.
I’ve been casually following Jaden since he dropped SYRE in 2017. I’ve tried to understand why I follow him to this day. I remember my roommate telling me that it wasn’t actually half bad, but I know there may be some hangups based on his classic tweets and publicity stunts. Let me try and me-mystify this one-time great thinker.
One look at his visuals or album covers, even scrolling through this story, and you can tell that he has a lot of backing to his vision. Most of the videos are filmed exclusively under a sky painted pink, giving him a signature style. These mix in with blues and purples to give a really pastel but at the same time dark aesthetic. I rarely watch music videos, but his are always a must-watch for me.
Listening to his music, you also hear that he has the backing of some great producers as well. Many of them are not household names, he’s not working with Kenny Beats or Metro Boomin or anything, but they do a lot to make up for the shortcomings. This is the main reason I listen to his music- you know you’re gonna get a bunch of beats that just sound incredible.
Jaden Smith runs the gamut of genres. He, like a true student of Frank Ocean and Kanye, isn’t content to stick to one genre or style. He jumps from sunset-drenched pop to screamed ragers. He may not always stick the landing, but the truth is you can never really predict what he’s going to put out next. There’s something to admire about that.
Jaden may jump from sound to sound, but Kid Cudi is his sacred text. In everything he does, Cudi is there, a guiding hand. Whether it’s the reverb, light autotune, or rhyme schemes, Jaden comes from the kids that revere Cudi. In every Jaden track, just like the best Cudi tracks, there’s drama. There’s emotion, and chances are it may even make you cry.
The truth is, Jaden Smith is clearly a product of his influences. He as a musician can not exist without Kid Cudi and Travis Scott, maybe even some Childish Gambino or A$AP Rocky. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, just that he cannot divest himself from the pack, despite being truly unique in his visuals. His full-length follow up to SYRE sounds like many sounds were lifted wholesale from Astroworld.
Now, I’m not one to get into the merits of Travis Scott’s Astroworld right now, but if you’re copying homework, there’s worse places you can do it from. Personally, there’s only so much Travis Scott I can stomach, so Jaden is just another alternative that fits into the same vibe.
Perhaps most interesting is that Jaden tries to pass off concepts in his music. In SYRE, it’s about lost love and the events surrounding a car crash. ERYS (get it?) is about some sort gang leader taking over the now-destroyed LA area (our protagonist, ERYS), and leading a rebellion in the city’s youth. Maybe a bit of a stretch, but you can’t fault him for the ambition.
Jaden Smith may never be the musician he thinks he is. He is consistently held up by his production and his guests. But every once in a while, there’s a song that just clicks. Starting off both his albums with a four-part suite “BLUE” and “PINK” respectively, you start to think that maybe this kid’s ideas aren’t that bad. In the latter, he coldly raps over the razor as he cuts off his hair. That’s pretty insane. But on the same album, “Summertime in Paris” with his sister is another hit, a soft ballad that shows off his similarly soft singing voice. There’s certainly a range to his talents.
On Cool Tapes, Vol. 3, he seems to swap out rap and hip hop for ballads entirely. The transition isn’t seamless, but few in the industry are willing to experiment like this. Reuniting with Justin Bieber, he lays bare his soul over 17 tracks. The work ethic on this kid is insane, and he seems to lack shame entirely. He’s just as likely to put out a bedroom pop track as he is to put out some punk-trap hybrid.
Because of all this, it’s hard, for me at least, to not feel happy for Jaden Smith. He gets to record songs with Kid Cudi, his literal hero.You never get the impression that he’s doing it for the money. This is strictly a dream for him, and he’s spoken about recording songs with Cudi since he was 12. Jaden has a story he wants to tell, he just needs to refine that vision and shed his obvious influences.
As it stands now, Jaden is just over 22. With a plethora of projects under his belt, he’s certainly got plenty of room to grow. At the moment, he can’t really detach himself from those that inspired him, but perhaps with hindsight he can really give us an unique and amazing project. With tweets like his, the sky’s the limit. All I can say now is that there’s flashes of brilliance in his music, and it’s inspiring to see an artist in that period of growth.
I think one of my favorite tracks by him is the eponymous song off his debut, SYRE. Over a repurposed Ricky Eat Acid instrumental, of all things, he recites a spoken word poem, talking about a car crash and lost love. It’s rough round the edges, but with voices creeping in and out of the mix, you understand that there are bigger ideas struggling to come out. Here’s hoping the modern philosopher himself can share those with us some day.
Syre, a beautiful confusion.
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