Willow Smith
Ardipithecus
Release Date: Dec 11, 2015
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Roc Nation
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Album Review: Ardipithecus by Willow Smith
Average, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 5.8/10
It's been five years since Willow Smith released "Whip My Hair," her undeniably catchy, exuberant debut single. It was light. It was fun. It was a good song. At nine years old, she was the youngest-ever signee to Roc Nation: perhaps not an astonishing fact given who her parents are, but hitting the ….
Based on rating 2.5/5
Two Approaches To ARDIPITHECUS There’s a 50-second clip on the internet of the Smith family being interviewed at an I Am Legend red carpet event. A hand holding a microphone asks about Willow Smith’s debut performance. Will says “I love her energy.” He smiles, repeats “energy” a couple times. Jaden turns away from the microphone.
Based on rating D+
“I am just a teenager/ But I feel angrier than a swarm of hornets,” Willow Smith sings on the opening track to her surprise debut album Ardipithecus. The line acts as a healthy reminder that yes, she’s a teen, and a young one at that — after working on the record over the past year, she’s only now turned 15 years old. Her older brother, Jaden, somehow is only 17.
Opinion: Fairly Good
“What the heck is happening?” Willow Smith sings in “Cycles,” a song from “Ardipithecus,” her first full album. “Why am I here?” “Why can I sing?” There’s a lot of that in “Ardipithecus,” released last Friday as a sudden digital drop: common youthful dissociative feelings, sudden long-view glimpses of the self. For Ms. Smith, the 15-year-old daughter of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, it’s a really long view.
Opinion: Mediocre
If the last Willow Smith song you remember is the single Whip My Hair, you have some catching up to do. In the ensuing five years, the 15-year-old daughter of Hollywood stars Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith has evolved into a songwriter/producer whose home schooling is manifested in this soundtrack for your next healing crystal shopping spree. She opens her debut album by calling upon her generation to break down systems of organization and classification, and then earnestly belts out, "I am just a teenager / But I feel angrier than a swarm of hornets.
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