WILLOW admits she puts pressure on herself to be a “better musician”.
The 21-year-old star – who is the daughter of Hollywood power couple Will and Jada Pinkett Smith – has set herself the challenge of nailing all of the “high notes” and is always seeking ways to “evolve” and improve as a performer.
She told Rolling Stone UK: “I feel pressure, internally, to become a better musician. I want to work harder on knowing the names of the notes. I sing in ways on this album that I never have before. I really want to challenge myself to hit all of those notes on-stage and just grow as a performer. I need to be thinking very deeply about my technique more than I have before so it’s definitely internal pressure to just evolve and to be better.”
The ‘Wait A Minute!’ singer had the idea for her upcoming fifth studio album, ‘Coping Mechanism’, back in 2018, but she didn’t feel the music was “good enough”.
She explained: “I was thinking about the concept in 2018. I always knew I wanted to make this album, I just knew that the music wasn’t good enough. So it was really just a matter of time until I heard what the album was supposed to sound like. The first time [producer] Chris Greatti and I got in the studio. I had been saying ‘Oh no, I’m not making an album I’m just chilling.’ And then after that session, I was like, ‘This is ‘Coping Mechanism’, this is the album I’ve been wanting to make.’ I heard the sound and I knew it. I just knew it.
“I probably hadn’t talked about it since 2018, but it was still in my mind, and I still knew that album was going to come from me at some point and now just happened to be the time.”