A decade ago, Jaden and a group of his close friends and family – Willow Smith, Mateo (Téo) and Moisés Arias, and Daniel and DylAn D’Artiste – started MSFTSrep to channel their creativity into making change. Via fashion collections, albums, creative projects and worldwide meet-ups, these “kids who got kicked out of the cool kids’ club” have come together to make a difference. We spoke to Jaden to find out more…
How did the idea come about to start MSFTSrep?
JS: It started when we were younger, by people making fun of us, telling us that we were weirdos – in the way that we dress, the way that we talk, what we chose to talk about, what we studied… Somebody in my life named OmArr Rambert, who has been working with my family for a long time, was like, ‘yo, you guys should start a group called misfits.’…And we ultimately landed on MSFTSrep, a group where young people can know, ‘hey, we might have such different lives from you, but we’re also weird, and we might feel like we don’t fit in either. We want you to know that there’s a place for you, for those people who feel like they don’t fit in, for you.’
What does it mean to be a misfit?
JS: Being a misfit has always been about just being different, and not necessarily fitting into the status quo… People grow these MSFTS communities all over the world. And then when they get to a certain size, and we’re around the area, we visit them…People come to us, and they talk to us about their emotions. They tell me about breakthroughs with their therapist, they write me long letters about how they feel about the world, they talk to me about sustainability. With a lot of those people that I have had genuine connections with, I keep those connections and we work together in the future.