Rapper Jaden Smith dropped his last name from his music moniker sometime last year but it was very low key.
But, with new music on the way, he sat down for an interview with Apple Music and Zane Lowe where he explained his decision to solely go by his first name.
“I realized that Willow changed her name to Willow at some point in time. And that she was no longer Willow Smith. Yeah, it took me a while. It took me a while. Because if you look Willow Smith up, it’ll still come up. But then it took me a while to see that it was just Willow. And I was like, ‘Yo. That’s so strong,'” says Jaden about his sister.
He continued,
“That’s strong. Willow. You feel like you don’t have to say your last name. You’re just Willow. I create different characters for myself and that’s also one of the reasons I love Bowie so much, but I create different characters for myself and it’s like, Jaden, that’s music and Jaden Smith, that’s 501(c)(3), that’s acting in movies. I wanted to just make that little distinction there, just a little bit, so that I could just … different things are happening.”