by Willow Smith
(Roc Nation)
One striking thing about Howard Sounes’s new Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney (Da Capo) is its depiction of the artist as a family man. Despite being one of the most famous people on earth—and one of the richest, as he got further from the Beatles and asserted his independence financially, not least in his acquisition of song publishing catalogs—McCartney and his wife Linda were determined their four kids would live normal lives. At one point in the late 1970s, their eldest daughter, Heather, told her parents she’d received some advice from her fellow students in St. John’s Wood, London: “You’ve no need to worry about your dad… if he gives you any more trouble, you can tell the papers.” The family promptly relocated to Sussex.
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith couldn’t be more different: Their kids are in the family business, which means blockbusters before puberty. This summer, 12-year-old Jaden starred in a remake of The Karate Kid that could have painlessly shaved off 45 minutes but was watchable even when it was silly, which was often. (Villain bad!) Daughter Willow, 9, steps into the spotlight a little more circumspectly—for three minutes instead of two and a half hours—but once the call of the sampled chorus (“I whip my hair back and forth! I whip my hair back and forth!”) comes boomeranging out of the speakers, it’s pretty obvious which Smith kid is going to walk away with 2010.
“Whip My Hair” sounds like Rihanna, period: singing that’s alternately pinched and throaty (with lots of Auto-Tune), swarming synths that evoke both orchestral blare and rock guitar (and early-’90s Belgian rave), and that nagging hook. It’s a classic pop maneuver—when the Beatles grow up a little, bring on the Monkees—and that’s important to its effect. Rather than the downcast material of Rated R (or the unapologetically aggressive “Rude Boy”), this is aimed at other 9-year-olds, and it succeeds at being cute without going overboard.
Cute runs out, as anyone reading a Paul McCartney biography can tell you—not to mention that nepotism doesn’t often lead to good music. (I will never forget the 1990 bootleg isolating Linda’s backing vocals, which got more radio play than anything Paul had out.) And you can buy your kids only so many good records—or at least Will and Jada Pinkett Smith can. But since Will was a teenage pop star, having his kids be as well is probably normal enough. 