Photo: Getty Images for Savage X Fenty At 15, I liked to think I was punk — I had dyed my hair magenta with Manic Panic and worn Dickies with a studded belt and low-top turquoise Converse that had AFI lyrics scrawled on them. Though, actually, it wasn’t so much that I was punk and more that I had a crush on a hot-pink-haired girl in my English class who gave me a Bikini Kill CD that felt like it had changed the trajectory of my life.
It was The Singles — a compilation album from 1998, right after the Kathleen Hanna–led group disbanded, years before the CD made its way into my hands. At the time, I had been listening to mainly male-led bands like the Ataris that wooed me with lyrics about the girls of their dreams. But listening to The Singles was a sonic experience that I hadn’t experienced — they snarled and growled, maniacally strummed their guitars.
Of late, the sounds and spirit of riot grrrl have made their way into mainstream — Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u”, the multiple references to Hole’s Live Through This album cover, and the ’90s street style that’s all over the place. But when Willow Smith’s “transparent soul” featuring Travis Barker dropped in April, and she sing-snarls, “Smile in my face, then put your cig out on my back,” I fully floated back to that same prickly feeling I had listening to Bikini Kill for the first time.
It’s common knowledge at this point that the Smith children are insanely talented at just about everything, but Willow’s album feels like it transcends beyond her 20 years . When Smith was only 10, she released the eternal banger “Whip My Hair,” and since then she’s continued to play around with genre on four albums and had guest features on older brother Jaden’s music, as well as with artists like Kid Cudi.
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