Whip My Hair

"Whip My Hair" arrived on October 26, 2010, five days before Willow Smith's tenth birthday. Released under the mononym Willow on Jay-Z's Roc Nation label in partnership with Columbia Records, it made her the youngest artist ever signed to Roc Nation. The track was written and produced by Ronald "Jukebox" Jackson with Janae Liann Ratliff, and it fuses pop rap, contemporary R&B, and electronic dance music around a stomping beat and a playground-chant hook. Smith has described the song's message as one of individuality: you can't be afraid to be yourself.

Commercially, the single peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top ten in Belgium's Wallonia region, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, while landing inside the top 20 in Australia, Canada, and Ireland. It became a radio and pop-culture fixture almost immediately, and Billboard later argued that its success was not a fluke. The song was also released as a one-track single, available on streaming platforms including Spotify and SoundCloud.

The official music video, directed by Ray Kay and released in late 2010, became a YouTube staple. Its chorus turned into a widespread cultural catchphrase, and the song earned a nomination for Best Music Video at the 2011 BET Awards among other honors. The song's afterlife has been unusually well documented. Smith has said she once regretted the hit but now embraces it, telling People in 2024 that its legacy is to be yourself and live out loud. She has repeatedly discussed the anxiety and pressure of the "Whip My Hair" era, including a year-long break afterward and being called a brat for panic attacks, and she has said it took her years to forgive her father, Will Smith, over the experience. Most famously, she shaved her head during a rock performance of the song, a protest aimed at ending the "Whip My Hair" tour, an episode Will Smith has also recounted publicly. [edit]