You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh Herway.

This episode contains explicit language.

Willow Smith is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles.

She's also a member of one of the most famous families in the world.

From a very young age, she followed in the musical footsteps of her parents, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

And released her first single when she was just 10 years old.

Since then, she's released four albums and was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

On her most recent album, she put out this song, Transparent Soul.

It was co-written with her longtime collaborator Tyler Cole, and it features Travis Barker from Blink 182 on drums.

I talked to Willow about how we're upbringing and her musical evolution from an early pop star days influenced the way she made this song.

I don't have any friends.

I mean, I have like two or three friends.

When I was younger, I was very confused as to why people would act the way they would act.

They would act different around me than they would act around other people or just seeing the differences and how I was treated because of who my parents were.

A lot of people will just use you for what they want to use you for.

And that's just not okay.

My name is Willow Smith.

Me and my family have always kind of wanted to know what the meaning of life is.

So for a very long time, we've tried to connect ourselves with monks and scholars and intellectuals who have dedicated their life in the search of what the meaning of life is.

And so I was reading a book called The Journey Home by Radhanath Swami.

And in that book, there's a quote that says,

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