Seven years before Jaden Smith was born, his father made a song called Summertime. Its a classic, but Jaden, who grew up in sunny California, didnt fully grasp the reason why until recently. People always make such a big deal about summer Drakes Summer Sixteen, or my dads song and I was like, So what?' says the 20-year-old rapper, actor and fashion rebel.
As hes seen more of the world, his perspective on the seasons has shifted. In Toronto, its very cold, you know what Im saying? Smith continues. This is the first year that I really understand what summer is, globally, and why its so cool. Im going to do exactly what I want, and its going to be fun.
Step one: his role in Skate Kitchen, a vrit-style indie drama about a circle of young women skaters in New York, headed to theaters on August 10th. Smiths performance as Devon, the films ambivalent love interest, is appealingly low-key, channeling both his moderate half-pipe skills (I can kick-flip, I can ollie some stairs pretty simple shit) and his unconventional philosophy of life. The whole culture of skating is rebellious to the system, he says. Youre like, Im not gonna walk, Im not gonna run, Im not gonna drive. Im gonna skate which is closer to flying.
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Skate Kitchen is his first major feature role since 2013, and it adds a new note to his range after his comedic turn last year in Netflixs animated social satire Neo Yokio. Smith describes working on set with director Crystal Moselle and her cast of mostly untrained teen actors as a moment of self-actualization: A lot of the movies that I do are very far away from who I am. This is the closest film to me my personality, even what I choose to wear.
@c.syresmith you completed our vision. Happy birthday to a real one #ICON
Smith is wandering in the woods near L.A. when he calls, taking a break from the studio where hes finishing Syre: The Electric Album, a guitar-centric rework of his 2017 LP, Syre. He cites Jimi Hendrix and Sgt. Pepper as key influences on the new album: Its a modern version of psychedelic rock for Internet babies. Hes also working on a strict, hard rap album called Erys, and taking meetings on plastics recycling for JUST Water, the environmentally-minded company he founded with his dad.
While a good portion of his fame is rooted in his fantastically weird Twitter persona How Can Mirrors Be Real If Our Eyes Arent Real, he wrote in 2013 Smith has mixed feelings about other social media platforms, lately going so far as to delete Instagram from his phone. Everybody is being judged about what they look like, he says. I stay out of it, man. Im literally in the forest right now, surrounded by trees.
He continues on this theme for a while more: If you ever look at the people that invented Instagram and Facebook, they talk about how they dont personally use it. Its a pleasure feedback loop that they built, so you always want to post a picture and see how many likes it gets and then post the next one and get more. Its proven science. The one exception he makes in this critique is for his fathers Instagram account: Hes genius, and hes still holding himself back. People are going to have to really step it up just to stay in the game.
A few days after we speak, he releases Syre: The Electric Album as a series of Instagram posts. Poetic contradictions abound in Smiths world. Take the way he feels about leaving his teens behind, as he did on July 8th, his 20th birthday and the day of the albums release. Every time I drop an album, I get a little bit younger, Smith says. I dont want to feel like Im 20 and shit! That makes me feel like I have to wear suits, and I dont want to do that. So Im going to mentally tell myself that Im still 19.
On another level, he knows his age is just another category to float above and beyond. Im always going to act how I want to act, Smith says. And some people are always going to think that Im crazy.
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