Once you hit a certain age, you get used to the talented youngsters coming up behind you who apparently skipped a beat where childhood was concerned, suddenly achieving everything you had reserved for adulthood, before they’ve even hit puberty. Child actors usually have a reassuring habit of fading away, and thankfully child pop stars often derail their careers by the age of twenty. So I can at least feel smug for playing my long game when it comes to success.
In 2015, we are seeing a whole new breed of early achievers. With the advent of social media, every fearless teenage dream can be worked out right in the public eye. With shorter attention spans, the appetite to create knows no limits – and holds no concept of how needful that creation might actually be. I wonder if anyone has thought to study the similarities between Kanye West and the teenage mind?
While most of our wild dreams are confined to the relatively small and transient audience of an average Instagram following (or earnestly chewing some poor victim’s ear off about our newfound and completely, brilliantly original understanding), child stars are thrown to the mercy of a global audience during those awkward years. Thankfully we can burn those embarrassing journals, and luckily you haven’t seen Steve since you were about 17 so no one is going to throw your cringeworthy chat in your face anytime soon. But with a twitter following of 5.72 million by age 17, and a press pack carefully noting down everything you care to say, Jaden Smith will probably not have that luxury.
So far, with a highly credible acting career, an equally promising start in music, his artistic Instagram and mystical or socially aware twitter posts… Jaden Smith was shaping up to be an interesting character. But after the interview where he and sister Willow expounded their disdain for traditional education, a ravenous intellect devouring ancient texts that pre-date science and cobbled together a whole host of spirituality, Smith skirted the line between brilliant and utterly ridiculous.
Now, with that spirituality in full flow, Smith is apparently working on a series of philosophical essays. With the kind of profound meaninglessness that would make politicians grind their teeth with envy, he commented in a recent interview with GQ that “I don’t think I’m as revolutionary as Galileo, but I don’t think I’m not as revolutionary as Galileo.” Deep. And now it is reported that he is working on a series of essays that are “new takes on string theory and chaos theory, but more mystical.”
The source of the comments is credited as a close friend of Smith, who also suggested that Smith is receiving a bit of extra tuition on these essays; “Jaden thinks he has spiritual ties to people in other dimensions and galaxies, and they are helping him write.” The theory of everything is certainly a large topic, so it is unsurprising that Smith has reached through that black hole for a little extra help.
Now, expression should never be stifled, and Smith’s celebrity certainly does not preclude his intelligence or his ability in any way. However, his musings so often smack of the kind of self awareness that coined the teenage belief that “no one else gets it”, that Smith has a long way to go until the world is ready to hear his reworking of Einstein and Lorenz. I’ll withhold judgment until these essays appear, but until then I can’t help but feel that someday, Smith is going to wish that his own “Steve” hadn’t gone to the press and that this might be one time where the fact that “no one listens to me” might be a blessing.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axAvQ4yfZ60]
Jaden Smith always seems to be on the radar in one way or another. Whether it’s wearing a white Batman suit to Kanye’s wedding or his amazing presence all over Twitter, Jaden’s like a young Shia LaBeouf the way he just keeps popping up all over our feeds.
Every once in a while though, Jaden comes out with some music. It’s rare, but it’s always exciting to listen to – whether for the features or to see what such a character of a young man’s music could sound like. In the past, he’s done collaborations alongside his sister Willow, released a 6 track EP, did a nine minute split with Ta-Ku which was surprisingly fire, and now he’s released a video for his latest track Scarface.
While BEAST MODE was more classic hip-hop, with really classic sounding production by Ta-Ku (taken from his 50 DAYS FOR DILLA series), Scarface is way more contemporary. The video shows Jaden as he’s followed through the streets of Matera in Italy by an assassin before being murdered and cutting the end of the track. Sirens, fat bass, and back-beat snares make up the instrumental, with Jaden’s flow really reminiscent of some recent Drake. Jaden hasn’t tried to hide Drake’s inspiration though, making some comments in a Youtube video that got posted just over a week ago:
“Once you take that step in the dark and you find a stair, it lights up. If Drake is over here and he finds a stair and it lights up I’m not gonna be an idiot and say “I’m only gonna use my stairs”. I don’t care about the stairs, all I care about is going higher.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3MXqWYgVBs]
Though he’s a really diving character – you either love him or you hate him – it’s great to see that Jaden’s putting out more music rather than wasting his breath on Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, he’s the best person I’ve ever followed on Twitter, beats just > Twitter.
When humanity leaves earth and future generations of Ape children are schooled inside a grounded Boeing 747 from a salvaged iPhone 3; it’s fair to assume that they will learn about human history from the wisdom of Jaden Smith tweets. Precocious young Apes will scratch their furry heads trying to decipher his unique philosophy; always expressed in 140 characters or less.
So to learn that Jaden Smith has now quit Twitter, and essentially deprived future Ape generations of its greatest existential philosopher – is nothing less than saddening. To commemorate the loss of this tremendous intellect, we count down his 10 most profound tweets.

Idealistic young Apes take ‘Jaden Smith 101′ in first year uni, before transferring to Economics in their second.
10/10 2013 – You Would Have To Eat 5 Apples Today To Get The Same Nutritional Value As An Apple from 1950 #Fallow
Jaden dropping pure science as per. A study by Donald Davis et al (2004) published in American College of Nutrition examined the nutritional data from fruit from 1950 and 1999. Davis noted “reliance declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and vitamin C.. Does Donald Davis have a Twitter account. If people don’t use their celebrity as a platform to bring forward the issue of declining fruit quality, who do you suppose will? Also, “fallow” means “plowed and left unseeded, uncultivated” – which I didn’t know, but Jaden Smith did.
09/13/2013 – If Everybody In The World Dropped Out Of School We Would Have A Much More Intelligent Society
Let me tell you a story about a small boy who grew up in rural Kentucky. From age 7 to age 21, that little boy toiled away, helping out on the family farm. He didn’t need a fancy college education. 3 years later in 1834 he was elected to the Illinois Legislature. And that little boy grew up to be ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Lincoln isn’t the only famous fool without formal education. Mark Zuckerburg, Brad Bitt, Ted Turner, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates all dropped out of college to devote their lives to far greater things than the meager pursuit of knowledge. Literally ten’s of people have gone on to do incredible things without the need for school.
05/10/14 – You Can Discover Everything You Need To Know About Everything By Looking At Your Hands
Palmistry, or as the Greeks called it chiromancy is the art of fortelling the future through the study of the palm. A learned chiromancer studies the various “lines” and “mounts” of the human hand to make conclusions about; love, attraction, intellectualism, vitality and vigor. Further, through detailed analysis of the ‘simian crease,’ conclusions can be drawn regarding an individuals life path, career choices, success and obstacles. Whilst there is a general perception amongst academics that palmistry is a pseudoscience that lacks an empirical basis, as to this date, there has been no conclusive peer-reviewed report that comprehensively disproves it.
08/07/2013 – If A Book Store Runs Out Of A Certain Book, Dose That Mean That Nobody Reads It, Or Everybody Reads It
Here Jaden raises a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality. Can something exist without it being perceived? Do we assume that the unobserved world functions in the same way as the observed world? What is the difference between what something is, and how it appears? What kind of book are we talking about here? Because, if it’s like a Dan Brown novel, or a paperback or something, then it’s probably fair to assume that they’ve run out of it because it’s selling heaps. You kind of need to know what sort of book it is.
09/12/2013 – If Newborn Babies Could Speak They Would Be The Most Intelligent Beings On The Planet Earth
I’ll only raise one slight criticism of this theory. Whilst I agree that if babies had the capacity to speak they would exhibit intelligence, the Look Who’s Talking Movies demonstrate conclusively that a baby’s intellect would be roughly equivalent to that of John Travolta or Kristie Alley.
05/01/2014 – When You Live Your Whole Life In Prison Freedom Can Be So Dull
Accurate. In 2012 Rodney Dwayne Valentine spent two months in jail on a charge of damage to personal property. When Rodney was freed from jail on May 22nd he refused to leave the premises. He was arrested for trespassing and subsequently incarcerated. This is just one of presumably thousands of tales of institutionalized people who loathe freedom.
09/09/2013 – All The Rules In The World Were Made By Someone No Smarter Than You So Make Your Own
Given that Benjamin Franklin framed the constitution and had an IQ of 160, and given that this is assumedly addressed exclusively to Microsoft founder Paul Allen (IQ of 160) theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (IQ of 160) and chess grand master Gary Kasparaov (IQ of 170) then this comment completely holds water. Otherwise it’s nonsensical.
08/12/14 – When The First Animal Went Extinct That Should’ve Bin A Sign.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity 99% of currently threatened species are at risk from human activity. It’s thanks to our douchey forefathers that we’re now deprived of such hilarious animals as the dodo and the quagga. Even after selfishly gorging themselves on so much plump dodo – they never thought to warn us.
12/23/14 – The Head Of The Sphinx Will Fall Off In The Near Future.
In 1990 the Getty Conservation Institute installed a solar-powered monitoring station on the back of the Great Sphinx of Giza to monitor its deterioration. The date has shown that a strong sandy north-west wind is the major source of erosion. Studies have also shown issues regarding structural instability. More generally, the second law of thermodynamics shows a universal rule of decay, where everything disintegrates over time.
09/19/2013 – Trees are never sad look at them every once in a while they’re quite beautiful
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In one of the more unlikely pairings of this year, Perth beatmaker Ta-Ku has teamed up with none other than Jaden Smith…
Yeah, seriously.
However, the product of this collaboration is actually really quite good. I’m not sure why I’m surprised, but it is still a little strange. Titled Beast Mode, Smith (who released an EP titled This Is The Album) revealed the project on Twitter saying he had made the songs when he was 15, as if it was a really long time ago.
It was last year.
You’re only 16, Jaden.
As always, Ta-Ku’s production is flawless. Dilla-esque, complex and immaculately layered, his work provides the perfect soundtrack to Smith’s intense rhymes. The three tracks can be streamed below from Ta-Ku’s Soundcloud, condensed into one 8 minute link.
Unlikely? Yes. Surprising? Definitely. However, it’s fresh as hell and will definitely be the soundtrack for my day! Hear it for yourself:











