Obsessing over... "Cabin Fever" by Jaden
Jaden's latest single sounds great. I'm really hoping the album that follows does too.
“Cabin Fever” is a really good song. The latest offering from rapper, singer and actor Jaden Smith is a laid-back, summery single about pining for a love you can’t see, partly inspired by the months we’ve spent self-isolating. The song is propelled by a steady bass line and bolstered by Jaden’s gentle harmonies. The music video, released on 30 July is the intersection where hype beasts and hippies meet, doubling as an ad for Jaden’s recent New Balance collaboration and sees the 22-year-old trying to win a girl’s attention and affection. I’m really obsessed with this song. It’s no exaggeration when I say I’ve had it on a near infinite loop since it dropped, the song’s sticky pre-chorus burrowing its way into my brain resulting in random outbursts of “I wanna feel your body on me!” whilst engaging in the most mundane of activities.
I haven’t been this obsessed with a Jaden song in a long time. To be perfectly honest, for a while now I’ve not been sure I knew who Jaden Smith was as an artist and I’m not entirely convinced that he knows either. I’m confident I can say which musicians he does like and takes cues from though. He likes Brockhampton, Kanye West, Kid Cudi and his official studio albums have been blatantly indebted to Travis Scott. But still, I don’t feel that I know who he is as an artist. There’s a fine line between wearing influences on your sleeve and imitation and since the release of 2017’s SYRE it's felt like Jaden has leaned more towards the latter. It’s not that any of the music has been particularly egregious, songs like “The Passion”, “Icon”, “Watch Me” and plenty more sound nice enough but his style has felt so derivative and at times unfocused that I’d largely stopped caring about his output by the time ERYS came around. That one line in “A Calabasas Freestyle” about a pregnant dragon was the last straw. Or at least, I thought it was.
I’ve been aware of the fact Jaden makes music since 2012’s The Cool Cafe: Cool Tape Vol 1 and been a fan of said music since its 2014 follow up, CTV2. Song’s like “Fire”, “Symba” and “Keep Ya Love” may have felt rough around the edges and been marked by his adolescent voice and refusal to curse but they also felt like Jaden was reaching for something unique. Back then his songs lacked the mainstream sheen that shimmers across SYRE and ERYS and despite the fact he now sounds a lot more convincing, he seemed much more interesting when he wasn’t doing his best to ape prevailing trends. He may have had a long way to go but I was excited by his potential. In an interview with MTV, when asked about why he’s opted to return to the Cool Tape series, he spoke about feeling like he’d almost abandoned the artist he used to be in favour of fleshing out his Syre and Erys characters and the sunset drenched world they occupy.
“Cabin Fever” isn’t necessarily all that similar to Jaden’s earlier music but it gives me hope for how CTV3 may end up sounding and more importantly, I’m optimistic about how the project is going to feel. “Cabin Fever” feels like Jaden having fun. It doesn’t give me the impression that he’s striving to replicate anyone else’s success by replicating their style and it’s refreshing for me to hear him sound this way.
Jaden signed to Roc Nation back in 2017 and since then his songwriting has felt its most focused when he’s pivoted away from rap and focused on singing. His latest single can stand proudly besides gems in his discography like “Ninety”, “Fallen” and the Willow Smith assisted “Summertime In Paris”. The aforementioned “Fallen” was the first glimpse of what would come to be SYRE so I’m under no illusion that one stellar single means I’m going to be a fan of CTV3 but I’m at least hopeful. I’m looking forward to CTV3 but If it ends up being underwhelming, I’m more than happy to leave “Cabin Fever” looping in my earphones while I daydream about Marshmallow pies and flying through the sky.