For years, Jaden Smith has been a public figure ripe for consumption in the digital age. At times more meme than man, his cryptic tweets, strange outfits, and all-around persona were perfect fodder to be gawked at and shared across your timeline. In presenting himself this way, he managed to carve an identity separate from his uber-famous family name. He wasn’t Jaden Smith, heir to the Smith Family Entertainment Empire, he was simply Jaden. Then he got to work.
Jaden’s second studio album, ERYS, was released 3 days before his 21st birthday. In his first 20 years of life he had managed to appear in 5 movies, release 2 albums, 3 mixtapes, 2 Eps, and 14 singles, act in two different series on Netflix, start his own clothing line, start his own water filtration company, and a mobile restaurant that provides free vegan food to the homeless. While never claiming to have struggled to get to where he is, it is clear that he is a big picture thinker, with lofty ambitions of changing the world. This wide-eyed idealism was present throughout SYRE, his debut album which was released in 2017. Despite his efforts, the restlessness that has made him a poster boy for the multi-hyphenate generation affected the album. It was overly long, with too heavy of a reliance on musical influences like Kid Cudi and Travi$ Scott. There were bright spots that showed potential but critically, the album fared only average at best. On ERYS, Jaden displays a growth that indicates he could reach stardom if he can get out of his own way.
If SYRE was Jaden’s softer alter-ego, trying to voice his truth and find his place in the world, ERYS is Jaden as a grinning devil, as quick to sell you his pink potion named ‘Vision’, as he is to shoot you dead. ERYS was born from the criticism of SYRE, and tells a story of Erys, a young man who becomes the leader of a dystopic Los Angeles, ruling his drugged out kingdom through fear and power. This storyline gives Jaden the avenue to pursue a darker, brasher punk-trap sound for ERYS. Slipping into the persona of Erys like a second skin, Jaden’s first foray into trap on the album comes on ‘I’, the album’s second track. Despite his best efforts, he can’t help but reference police brutality and the Nephilim on a song designed to be a club banger. He raps with a newfound force that blends those heavy themes into the song perfectly, his distorted vocals booming as he lands boast after boast. At the same time, he is able to craft airy pop music that sounds like ice cream and warm days on ‘Summertime in Paris.’ Supported beautifully by his sister Willow, Jaden is still eager to show off his versatility as an artist.
The first four songs on the album spell PINK forming the flipside of BLUE, the first four songs on SYRE. ‘K’ has Jaden displaying the star potential that has made his core fanbase so devoted to him. The first half of the song shows the vulnerable side of Erys, a moody ballad about a girl he met and fell in love with. His vocals have a way to go, but the trajectory of other male stars has shown that they will get better. There is a sweet earnestness in his voice when he sings “girl come back to the house, come lay down on the couch with me.” The second half begins with the sound of hair clippers, perhaps referencing his 2017 Met Gala appearance where he wore his dreads after cutting them off. His buzzcut has become synonymous with his persona and he relishes that as the buzzing clippers morph into an absolutely punishing trap beat. Its easy to imagine Jaden as Erys, grills gleaming, as he raps “all these posers make me wanna fucking suffocate, get a close up I just gave myself another fade”. He even displays the smirking wit of his idol Kanye, when he says “my jeweller a dentist, they saw my drip and had a wet dream, that’s a hell of a fetish.” The song is Jaden’s attempt to be taken seriously as a rapper, and truthfully he’s convincing.
The first half of the album is filled with hard beats, and a lot of flexing. At one point, Erys interrupts a track in which Syre had popped up to croon, shouting “I told you no playing no more wack shit! Big drip only!” At times the album almost feels satirical in how Jaden approaches these tracks. On “I Got It”, Tay Keith delivers a gem of a beat for Jaden to stunt on. You could easily imagine Blocboy JB, Migos, or even Drake on the same beat, adopting a similar flow, but Jaden is able to make it his own with the help of Erys. “She want that brand new designer, that Louie bandana, I told her I got it”, is how he starts the song off, setting the tone of a man in charge. Tyler’s feature on ‘Noize’ is another highlight on the album continuing his great run of form. ‘Fire Dept’ is a fun attempt at the punk rock sound of Southern California which he surprisingly manages to pull off, keeping the song brief and punchy.
The album begins to slog on the back half. No matter how hard he tries to play Erys, Jaden always manages to come out. He succumbs to his worst tendencies in terms of relying on influences and the album drags as he veers away from the trap-laden aggression of the first half. The first half of ‘Pain’ sounds as if it could have been a knockoff attempt of ‘Owl Pharaoh’ Travi$ Scott. The fact that the song is six minutes does not help either. ERYS is one hour and nine minutes with the Deluxe version clocking in at an hour an eighteen. It’s ironic that in the middle of ‘Pain’, there is a dreamy ballad reminiscent of a California sunset, but we had to sit through three minutes of dreary rap to hear it. Hopefully as he grows older he’ll learn how to streamline his albums so that the best parts of his genre-mashing experiments can shine.
Jaden is only 21. He was 12 when ‘Thank Me Later’ dropped. He was 15 when ‘Owl Pharaoh' came out. He was 11 ‘Man on the Moon: The End of Day’ came out. Jaden is representative of a new generation that looks up to Drake, Cudi, Rocky, and even Tyler as their OGs. The influences are evident in his music and as he progresses, he will need to continue to hone his own sound to truly stand apart from his peers. ERYS isn’t a truly ‘great’ album, but its highs are very high and its’s a very good attempt by a young artist trying to make a name for himself in a rap culture that he has studied and gained immense respect for. I believe that Jaden is a star, even if everyone doesn’t see it yet. I believe people will begin to see it soon. He has displayed a work ethic that will be needed if he wants to rise to the top of a crowded rap scene. Jaden believes in himself, I believe in him too.
