“Bizarre?” No, Babe, That’s Called Feeling the Music
Willow Smith closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and let a song pour straight out of her chest at Blue Note Los Angeles. Somewhere on the internet, somebody decided that was a problem.
A 90-second clip from her October 12 show hit X with a caption calling it a “bizarre performance” full of “erratic body movements.” Within about a day, it had roughly 1.86 million views and more than 2,000 replies. Sis was trending for the crime of singing with her whole body.
Sequins, Braids, and a Whole Lot of Feeling
Let’s set the scene, because the vibes were immaculate. Blue Note LA is a jazz club on Sunset that seats about 200 people. Willow stood in a floor-length sequined gown that caught every bit of red and blue stage light. She had long braids, a green pendant at her throat, and a grand piano behind her.
In the clip, she points, opens her palms to the ceiling, presses her hands to her heart, and scrunches her brow on the big notes. Anybody who’s been to a jazz set, a soul show, or a Sunday service that got good knows exactly what that is. It’s called being moved.
Since When Is Her Love Life a Music Review?
Here’s where the post told on itself. Somewhere between “erratic” and “roasted online,” it found room to mention that Willow “identifies as bisexual, pansexual and polyamorous.”
Respectfully, what does that have to do with her vibrato? When a stranger’s sexuality gets stapled onto a critique of her stage presence, the critique was never about the stage. Willow has been open about her relationships, including on Red Table Talk back in 2019. That openness deserves respect, not to be used against her.
And we know this pattern by heart. Black women get called “too much” for the same expressiveness that earns other artists words like “ethereal” and “raw.” Same closed eyes, different reviews.
The Group Chat Pulled Up for Her
The best part? Plenty of people weren’t having it. One of the most-engaged replies called it a weak take. It said Willow was simply “a woman singing and putting her feels into it,” and wondered whether the critic had ever been to a live show.
Another reply with over a thousand likes kept it simple: she’s “actually talented and feeling the music.” A musician jumped in to ask why sexual preference was even part of the conversation, and said the set sounded good. Even folks who admitted experimental vocals aren’t their cup of tea agreed that bringing identity into it was a reach.
A few commenters insisted the vocals were pre-recorded or heavily processed. Nobody has backed that up. There were also no reports of technical glitches or disruptions that night.
Y’all Missed the Memo: She’s Been Weird on Purpose
Anyone clutching pearls hasn’t been paying attention. Willow left “Whip My Hair” in the rearview more than a decade ago. Since then she’s chased neo-soul and psychedelia on Ardipithecus, pop-punk on lately I feel EVERYTHING, and jazz on Empathogen. That last one earned Grammy nominations and topped Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Albums chart.
This year alone, she’s been on a creative tear. In February, she surprise-dropped the self-produced petal rock black. Rolling Stone praised her earlier Blue Note shows as vulnerable and joyful, with a “weird and hungry” energy. In July came The Thread, a devotional album about spirituality and soft femininity. That’s two albums before fall even showed up.
Music that spiritual isn’t meant to be delivered standing still. The hands, the closed eyes, the tilted head are the point.
Too Much? Nah, Just Enough
What Willow did on that stage is something a lot of us are still practicing: taking up space without asking permission first. She wasn’t performing for the algorithm. She was performing for the music, for that room, and for herself.
Watching a young Black woman refuse to shrink so strangers online can stay comfortable is its own kind of medicine. That’s not bizarre. That’s freedom. We should want that for every one of us.
So the next time somebody calls you “too much,” picture Willow under those red and blue lights. Eyes closed, palms open, fully and unapologetically herself.
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