Travis Barker Trending on Twitter After Pop-Punk Collab With Willow Smith

Is Travis Barker single-handedly creating the next generation of pop-punk acts? Twitter seems to think so, especially after his recent pairing with Willow Smith (yes, that Willow Smith of “Whip My Hair” and Fresh Prince’s kid fame) on the new song “Transparent Soul.”

Willow’s song dropped on Tuesday (April 27) with the Barker feature and immediately caused a stir on social media with listeners drawing comparisons between the vocalist and Paramore’s early sound and tossing out lots of compliments to Barker for carrying the torch for pop-punk in 2021.

Now billed as just Willow, the musician spoke with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 and shared that her love of music came from watching the energy of her mom’s (Jada Pinkett-Smith) energy on tour with Wicked Wisdom. She added, “Flash forward to I’m 12-years-old and I’m listening to Blink-182, and Avril Lavigne and My Chemical Romance, and having this yearning to dive into this kind of music and still feeling afraid, and still feeling like, ‘Well maybe this isn’t right for me. Maybe I’m not the one to do this.’ And when COVID hit and I just had all this time on my hands, I was like, ‘Let me try and go through this fear and actually prove to myself if this is a genre I can do.'”

As for the collaboration with Barker, she added, “Travis is one of my favorite artists. And it’s so interesting because he is a drummer, but he’s so much more than that. We all know this. He’s so much more than that. And being in the studio with him really showed me how multi-dimensional his artistry really is … I just respect him immensely. And I’m just honored that he was even down to be a part of it, the fact that to me, Travis is a pop punk legend.”

Check out the lyrics and song below and pick up the song here.

Willow Featuring Travis Barker, “Transparent Soul” Lyrics

I don’t fuckin know if it’s a lie or it’s a fact
All your little fake friends will sell your secrets for some cash
Smile in my face then put your cig out on my back
If you ever see me just get to runnin like the flash

I knew a boy just like you
He’s a snake just like you
Such a fake just like you
But I can see the truth

Transparent soul
I can see right through just so you know

Transparent soul
I can see right through just so you know

I don’t fuckin know it’s paradise or it’s a trap
Yeah, they’re treating me like royalty but is it kissin ass
No one’s brave enough to take the fall right
But it’s all your fault
Why you actin like it’s alright

I knew a girl just like you
She was vain just like you
Such a pain just like you but I can see the truth

Transparent soul
I can see right through just so you know

Transparent soul
I can see right through just so you know

It’s clear to me know
You’re scared of me wow
It’s clear to me now
(Transparent soul)

It’s clear to me know
You’re scared of me wow
It’s clear to me now
(Transparent soul)

Transparent soul
I can see right through just so you know

Transparent soul
I can see right through just so you know

Willow Smith Featuring Travis Barker, “Transparent Soul”

While Barker has been collaborating with artists outside the pop-punk genre for years, he’s been on quite the hot streak in 2020 and 2021 welcoming a number of artists not known for pop-punk and helping them make inroads into the genre.

Rapper Machine Gun Kelly’s transformation into the pop-punk king of 2020 on the Tickets to My Downfall album is probably the most notable of Barker’s collaborations, but he’s also worked with Yungblud, Nothing.Nowhere, Jxdn, Tyler Posey and phem, Poorstacy, rapper Trippie Redd over the last couple of years and sat in with Post Malone during his Nirvana tribute livestream in 2020.

That tremendous output was not lost on Twitter followers who had Barker trending early Wednesday and the collaboration with Willow also contributed some to Paramore trending on the social media platform as well. See a sampling of comments below: