Jaden Smith, Willow Smith

From the venue:

True innovators change multiple games all at once. As such, Jaden elevates music, film, fashion, and philanthropy with each evolution. The gold-selling rapper, songwriter, producer, and curator obliterates boundaries between hip-hop, alternative, rock, and indie.

He initially put a revolutionary vision into play on the 2012 mixtape, The Cool Café. 2014 saw him release Cool Tapes Vol.2 exclusively on the Jaden Experience—a groundbreaking app enabling direct distribution of a “full album experience.” Amassing nearly half-a-billion cumulative streams by 2019, his full-length debut SYRE bowed in the Top 10 of the Billboard Top Rap Albums Chart and Top Hip-Hop/R&B Chart as well as the Top 25 of the Top 200 in 2017. The lead single “Icon” not only scored 147 million Spotify streams within two years, but it also garnered a gold plaque from the RIAA. In the aftermath, Time extolled him among the “Top 30 Influential Teens of 2017,” and Pandora touted him in its “Artists to Watch of 2018.” The visionary’s 2018 single “Ghost” maintained momentum by putting up 53 million Spotify streams with the catchy and chaotic “Goku” on its heels at 15 million. At the end of the year, he contributed the punchy and punked-out “Way Up” to the chart-topping Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Original Soundtrack.