What does 21st Century Girl mean?

Willow Smith: 21st Century Girl Meaning

Album cover for 21st Century Girl album cover

Song Released: 2011


21st Century Girl Lyrics

Give me an inch
I promise I'll take a mile
Danger is beauty
I'll face it with a smile

I'm on a mission
With no restrictions
Don't second guess myself
I'm born to be wild

I'm the type of chick
That likes to rock the beat
I like to...

Write an interpretation
  1. anonymous
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     Jan 7th 2014 !⃝

    After reading the shallow and severely-limited interpretive efforts posted above, more than a year ago, I feel that I need to, well...ILLUMINATE... based on some standard analytical parameters of the given text and the possible meanings of the supplemental visual sides of the song presented in the music video.

    Let's be blunt. Willow is a kid. Media for kids is about imagination, NOT political agendas. Power Rangers, Pokémon, Avatar, Candy Crush, and other successful enterprises of child entertainment are always stimulating "gift-bags", if you will, filled with fantastical and otherworldly super-human realities (i.e.: dragging skyscrapers out of the sand) to complement the intense inertia of youth development and the short attention spans of minds that are rapidly-integrating new knowledge. In other words, if it isn't moving as fast as they are, it feels slow and boring. Kids are exploding into life, and everyone older than 16 looks relatively still.

    [Einstein said something similar about our fastest projectiles viewed from a particle of light, which would make bullets appear to have stopped mid-flight as light zoomed by.]

    This video is top-level "CURRENT", as Will Smith attempts to ensure his daughter is at the forefront of "state-of-the-art", and hires the best people he can for the jobs needed in writing, tracking, mixing, mastering, designing, filming, editing, marketing, and distributing the audio and video releases of any Willow Smith project.

    If the "message" of this video or song lyric seems vulnerable to speculation about the Illuminati or kids changing a fallen world, it might just be a glimpse at what comes THROUGH when someone releases pop media in this age that is produced to maximize on what sells without using anything sexual. I'm saying they did what was going to WORK, and what they knew would come across as "cool".

    Some will try to bash this interpretation by claiming "confidence is sexual!!" or "OMG Ke$ha is overtly sexual and Willow's vocals in the verses are totally Ke$ha style! This is objectifying children!", or anything else related to stylish/fashionable behavior or clothing or "bling" or vocal techniques, ad nauseam.

    If you have such paranoia that links one thing to the other, making anything potentially "sexual", I suggest you take your interpretations elsewhere. Or, if you think children shouldn't be "rebellious", "confident", "sassy", or spoiled into thinking they rule the world and deserve everything, then try to change the world.

    Deep down, I think we want kids to feel free, as long as they have humility, respect for their elders, kindness, joy, love, safety, sincerity, and acceptance toward themselves and others as they live and learn in a new and unfamiliar environment, growing in understanding as they mature.

    Adults who see child-media often interpret things politically, becoming concerned about the messages and standards that are being broadcasted into the worldview of their youths. If the kids know the difference between fantasy and reality, they're annoyed by adults who are so concerned about the literal interpretations. Kids need the creative stimulation, and they become filled with wonder and amazement when they see these impossible spectacles of media.

    So, is the lady at the beginning a witch? A subject of the illuminati?

    Is Willow Smith a depraved girl, spoiled and doomed to a terrible crash in her early teens by her riches and fame? Will hormones devastate her lingering expectations, sending her into a downward spiral of bitterness toward a world that was supposed to treat her special?

    I don't think we get to say.

    I'm sure she and many other kids her age will look back on these songs and videos as amazing memories of fantastical wonder. These were small worlds of the way things could be, just like every work of art, because that what art does. Interpretation isn't about worry. It's about becoming engrossed in the contents of mediums of expression offered by an artist. I could have done a literary exposition on these lyrics, but they're so simple. Instead, having written so much already, I'll just leave this as a message to conscientious examination of media and art. This is not a forum for regurgitating your own fears and speculations about the world. Those reactions are a legitimate part of digesting media, but they are for sharing with your friends. Interpretations are not reactions or speculations.

    Props to everyone above who actually dealt with material from the song, rather than assumptions about illuminati or their own emotional hopes or fears.

  2. gigibug2000
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     Jul 17th 2012 !⃝

    i think it means that she is growing up in the new (21st) century and it is like rebuilding the world??

  3. anonymous
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     Jun 7th 2012 !⃝

    YOU'RE WRONG PEOPLE!! DIDN'T YOU LOOK THE BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE SONG 21ST CENTURY?? willow's mother explains the meaning of the song..
    you know the meaning?
    its about that all girls and women have rights to control themselves..
    and about the wolves that ran after her..it symbolizes woman's spirit...spirit if creative life and spirit of vitality.. and the power of woman is she can create anything out of nothing..

    *you posted about illuminati's..don't judge the girl..

  4. anonymous
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     May 31st 2012 !⃝

    She is illuminate n twenty first century girl is about she will make the little girls posses by the devil just by being wild n crazy

  5. anonymous
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     Sep 20th 2011 !⃝

    It's about the kids fixing the future.

  6. anonymous
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     May 28th 2011 !⃝

    I think willow smith's song 21 century girl is all about being an illuminatist , a brat and a controller of the world like on the part which says iam a rebel but i do it with class i set the boundaries the rules dont own me am living life on the edge i choose my path

  7. anonymous
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     May 27th 2011 !⃝

    i realy suspect the voodoo ritual being performed in the begining of the song.willow is being created by an abandoned bone and other magic things.she comes out of the sand and isn,t yet awake till that voodooo ritualist whispers a secret into her ear.and when she awakens ,that woman is gone man.she looks around and is confused.she looks in a cocoon and nod's her head,then pick's up jumping sand and a butterfly comes out.i,m a girl of 12yrs and willow's great fan.but i'll stop.now if that isn't strange,i don't know what is.

  8. anonymous
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     May 11th 2011 !⃝

    I just think she's saying since she was born in the 21st century, she's crazy, wild, and I guess rebellious. Obviously, that IS the main fact, but I just think the basic idea is what it's really about

  9. anonymous
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     May 3rd 2011 !⃝

    Just feel she is being lured to the illuminati like everyone else because the song really has a terrible hidden meaning which i don't understand.

  10. Rada Kirilova
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     May 2nd 2011 !⃝

    Pretty funny how such a simple song can be so exact in predicting the future. The people of the 21st century are indeed going to be free, if being free means respecting no rules and doing what you like ("do what thou wilt", anyone? No credit to Crowley, thou, Nietzsche got it first). Of course, this extends only to a group of selected individuals, the others can feel free to waste their life working and consuming. Isn't that how it's always been, anyway? So stop that "the Illuminati will take over the world" thing, it's ridiculous. The best you can do is make sure that more people get out of this 'work-consume' cycle and learn to live for real :)

  11. anonymous
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     Apr 14th 2011 !⃝

    Looking at the video, I think it's a message about the future. It refers to a disaster in 2012 that will leave earth a barren desert. Willow and her friends are "summoned" and given a mission: to save the earth and start a new century. It's about creating a new future and how kids will save us.

  12. anonymous
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     Mar 26th 2011 !⃝

    I think it has some sort of hidden meaning.i suspect the part of dogs running after her.and her hair woooooooooooooow.what a style.well that style looks like the horns of their illuminati god[rah].and her gown is........what can I say,it is shapeless.and I think the way it is long till it touches the floor,for me it is to represent the devils tail.thats all I think.i have,nt yet seen the full video but I have already spotted out what are signs of illuminati for me.grasias..


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